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when the conversation at the vicarage had fallen upon some
mildly rationalistic work which was then exciting discus-
sion in the newspapers.
‘But why should you be right and all those fellows like St.
Anselm and St. Augustine be wrong?’
‘You mean that they were very clever and learned men,
while you have grave doubts whether I am either?’ asked
Weeks.
‘Yes,’ answered Philip uncertainly, for put in that way his
question seemed impertinent.
‘St. Augustine believed that the earth was flat and that
the sun turned round it.’
‘I don’t know what that proves.’
‘Why, it proves that you believe with your generation.
Your saints lived in an age of faith, when it was practically
impossible to disbelieve what to us is positively incredible.’
‘Then how d’you know that we have the truth now?’
‘I don’t.’
Philip thought this over for a moment, then he said:
‘I don’t see why the things we believe absolutely now
shouldn’t be just as wrong as what they believed in the
past.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘Then how can you believe anything at all?’
‘I don’t know.’
Philip asked Weeks what he thought of Hayward’s reli-
gion.
‘Men have always formed gods in their own image,’ said
Weeks. ‘He believes in the picturesque.’

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