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It beseemed him as a skeptic to endure the worst with equanimity; under all circumstances he liked to be in the right, and he would fain have called out to his sister that the cruel powers whose enmity he had incurred still persisted in driving him on to despair and death, worthy as he was of a better fate.
Opening it he read, 'You took the Sword of the Spirit and stabbed me through and through one day, and every time I tried to parry the blade and get you to use your hands, and not the Heavenly steel, you simply gave me another stab. You made me feel I was not fighting you, but God. It was signed by the former skeptic in whom the 'seed of the Word' had finally been mixed with faith.
Whether his father flogged him for such irreverence, we are not told; nevertheless, the fact is suggestive of an element in the boy's make-up to which the ingenious skeptic may appeal with success. Possibly it was only the native humor of the boy, which, with his love of fun, cropped out on that occasion. It was irreverence, however, whatever may have been his motive.
And this error was entertained by these inspired apostles after the day of Pentecost; it influenced their teaching; it led them to proclaim a defective gospel. This is not the assertion of a skeptic, it is the clear testimony of the Apostle Paul.
Such are the means by which the mystical cults earn their laurels. A chance letter of the type which often swells the mail of the psychologist may illustrate this effect. I choose it because it is evidently written by a skeptic. A short quotation from the lengthy epistle is sufficient. "My condition was horrible in the extreme.
"If I could only have your faith, gladly would I but I was born a skeptic. I cannot look upon God and the future as you do." So said John Harvey as he walked with a friend under a dripping umbrella. John Harvey was a skeptic of thirty years standing and apparently hardened in his unbelief. Everybody had given him up as hopeless.
He had been attempting to sweep the dining-room floor which is of hardwood, with a centre rug and had had a bad time of it. The Skeptic jeered at him and mentioned the implements he should have used. Azalea looked at them both wonderingly. "How in the world do you men come to know so much about housework?" she inquired, wiping a single teaspoon diligently.
And Franchi looked round upon his audience with a glance of gratified malice. "Even in Lucca! even in Lucca!" Malatesta clapped his hands and chuckled until he almost choked. "Laus Veneri! the mighty goddess! She has reared an altar even here in this benighted city. I was a skeptic, but a Paphian miracle has converted me. I must drink a punch in honor of the great goddess."
With this, she bent over him to kiss his brow, but he raised himself a little, and said, with a contemptuous smile: "Apathy ataraxy complete indifference is the highest aim after which the soul of the skeptic strives. That at least "=-and here his eyes flashed for a moment "I have attained to in these cursed days.
"You were not very different, my dear," said Grandmother, in her gentle way, "from many girls of this day." "Forgive me, dear," responded Rhodora, "but I was so much worse that only a grandmother like you could have shown me what I was." "I never tried to show you what you were," said Grandmother. "Only what you could be. And now I must lose you." The Preacher came up, the Skeptic by his side.
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