Thomas Wingfold
could not, on the church's part, prove to anybody that there
was;--dared not, indeed, so certain would he be of discomfiture,
advance a single argument on his side of the question. Was it even
HIS side of the question? Could he say he believed there was a God?
Or was not this all he knew--that there was a church of England,
which paid him for reading public prayers to a God in whom the
congregation--and himself--were supposed by some to believe, by
others, Bascombe, for instance, not?
These reflections were not pleasant, especially with Sunday so near.
For what if there were hundreds, yes, thousands of books,
triumphantly settling every question which an over-seething and
ill-instructed brain might by any chance suggest,--what could it
boot?--how was a poor finite mortal, with much the ordinary faculty
and capacity, and but a very small stock already stored, to set
about reading, studying, understanding, mastering, appropriating the
contents of those thousands of volumes necessary to the arming of
him who, without pretending himself the mighty champion to seek the
dragon in his den, might yet hope not to let the loathly worm
swallow him, armour and all, at one gulp in the highway? Add to this
that--thought of all most dismayful!--he had himself to convince
first, the worst dragon of all to kill, for bare honesty's sake, in
his own field; while, all the time he was arming and fighting--like
the waves of the flowing tide in a sou'-wester, Sunday came in upon
Sunday, roaring on his flat, defenceless shore, Sunday behind Sunday
rose towering, in awful perspective, away to the verge of an
infinite horizon--Sunday after Sunday of dishonesty and sham--yes,
hypocrisy, far worse than any idolatry.
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