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England; and in England as well in a Wesleyan, Baptist, or
Methodist family as in one that fortunately belonged to the
church by law established. He was a little breathless at the
danger he had run. Philip was on friendly terms with the
little Chinaman who sat at table with him twice each day.
His name was Sung. He was always smiling, affable, and po-
lite. It seemed strange that he should frizzle in hell merely
because he was a Chinaman; but if salvation was possible
whatever a man’s faith was, there did not seem to be any
particular advantage in belonging to the Church of Eng-
land.
Philip, more puzzled than he had ever been in his life,
sounded Weeks. He had to be careful, for he was very sensi-
tive to ridicule; and the acidulous humour with which the
American treated the Church of England disconcerted him.
Weeks only puzzled him more. He made Philip acknowl-
edge that those South Germans whom he saw in the Jesuit
church were every bit as firmly convinced of the truth of Ro-
man Catholicism as he was of that of the Church of England,
and from that he led him to admit that the Mahommedan
and the Buddhist were convinced also of the truth of their
respective religions. It looked as though knowing that you
were right meant nothing; they all knew they were right.
Weeks had no intention of undermining the boy’s faith, but
he was deeply interested in religion, and found it an absorb-
ing topic of conversation. He had described his own views
accurately when he said that he very earnestly disbelieved
in almost everything that other people believed. Once Phil-
ip asked him a question, which he had heard his uncle put

1 Of Human Bondage