see that God could not have done it either, for that it was not
justice. Some perception of this must have lain at the root of the
heresy that Jesus did not suffer, but a cloud-phantom took his place
on the cross. Wherever people speculate instead of obeying, they
fall into endless error."

"You graceless boy! Do you dare to say your father speculated
instead of obeying?" cried the mother, hot with indignation.

"No, mother. It was not my father who invented that way of
accounting for the death of our Lord."

"He believed it!"

"He accepted it, saturated with the tradition of the elders before
he could think for himself. He does not believe it now."

"But why then should Christ have suffered?"

"It is the one fact that explains to me everything," said Ian.
"--But I am not going to talk about it. So long as your theory
satisfies you, mother, why should I show you mine? When it no longer
satisfies you, when it troubles you as it has troubled me, and as I
pray God it may trouble you, when you feel it stand between you and
the best love you could give God, then I will share my very soul
with you--tell you thoughts which seem to sublimate my very being in
adoration."

"I do not see what other meaning you can put upon the statement that
he was a sacrifice for our sins."