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to be absorbed. You take your morality because it is com-
bined with religion; you lose the religion and the morality
stays behind. A man is more likely to be a good man if he
has learned goodness through the love of God than through
a perusal of Herbert Spencer.’
This was contrary to all Philip’s ideas. He still looked
upon Christianity as a degrading bondage that must be cast
away at any cost; it was connected subconsciously in his
mind with the dreary services in the cathedral at Tercan-
bury, and the long hours of boredom in the cold church at
Blackstable; and the morality of which Athelny spoke was
to him no more than a part of the religion which a halt-
ing intelligence preserved, when it had laid aside the beliefs
which alone made it reasonable. But while he was medi-
tating a reply Athelny, more interested in hearing himself
speak than in discussion, broke into a tirade upon Roman
Catholicism. For him it was an essential part of Spain; and
Spain meant much to him, because he had escaped to it
from the conventionality which during his married life he
had found so irksome. With large gestures and in the em-
phatic tone which made what he said so striking, Athelny
described to Philip the Spanish cathedrals with their vast
dark spaces, the massive gold of the altar-pieces, and the
sumptuous iron-work, gilt and faded, the air laden with
incense, the silence: Philip almost saw the Canons in their
short surplices of lawn, the acolytes in red, passing from
the sacristy to the choir; he almost heard the monotonous
chanting of vespers. The names which Athelny mentioned,
Avila, Tarragona, Saragossa, Segovia, Cordova, were like

10 Of Human Bondage