proselytism; _you_ are not the sport of every whiff of doctrine, nor the
facile slave of whatever superstition is last buzzed in your ear. No, no:
you've got a masculine intellect, and think for yourself, hey?"

I was incapable of answering him. I quickened my pace to escape from his
detested persecution; but he was close beside me still.

We walked on together thus for a time, during which I heard him muttering
fast to himself, like a man under fierce and malignant excitement. We
reached, at length, the gateway of my dwelling; and I turned the
latch-key in the wicket, and entered the enclosure. As we stood together
within, he turned full upon me, and confronting me with an aspect whose
character I felt rather than saw, he said--

"And so you mean to be a Christian, after all! Now just reflect how very
absurdly you are choosing. Leave the Bible to that class of fanatics who
may hope to be saved under its system, and, in the name of common sense,
study the Koran, or some less ascetic tome. Don't be gulled by a
plausible slave, who wants nothing more than to multiply _professors_ of
his theory. Why don't you _read_ the Bible, you miserable, puling
poltroon, before you hug it as a treasure? Why don't you read it, and
learn out of the mouth of the founder of Christianity, that there is one
sin for which there is _no_ forgiveness--blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost, hey?--and that sin I myself have heard you commit by the hour--in
my presence--in my room. I have heard you commit it in our free
discussions a dozen times. The Bible seals against you the lips of mercy.
If _it_ be true, you are this moment as irrevocably damned as if you had
died with those blasphemies on your lips."

Having thus spoken, he glided into the house. I followed slowly.