_Father._--You see, this Percivale is an honest man. I don't exactly know
how he has been brought up; and it is quite possible he may have had such
evil instruction in Christianity that he attributes to it doctrines which,
if I supposed they actually belonged to it, would make me reject it at once
as ungodlike and bad. I have found this the case sometimes. I remember once
being astonished to hear a certain noble-minded lady utter some indignant
words against what I considered a very weighty doctrine of Christianity;
but, listening, I soon found that what she supposed the doctrine to contain
was something considered vastly unchristian. This may be the case with
Percivale, though I never heard him say a word of the kind. I think his
difficulty comes mainly from seeing so much suffering in the world, that
he cannot imagine the presence and rule of a good God, and therefore lies
with religion rather than with Christianity as yet. I am all but certain,
the only thing that will ever make him able to believe in a God at all is
meditation on the Christian idea of God,--I mean the idea of God _in_
Christ reconciling the world to himself,--not that pagan corruption of
Christ in God reconciling him to the world. He will then see that suffering
is not either wrath or neglect, but pure-hearted love and tenderness. But
we must give him time, wife; as God has borne with us, we must believe that
he bears with others, and so learn to wait in hopeful patience until they,
too, see as we see.

And as to trusting our Wynnie with Percivale, he seems to be as good as
she is. I should for my part have more apprehension in giving her to one
who would be called a thoroughly religious man; for not only would the
unfitness be greater, but such a man would be more likely to confirm her
in doubt, if the phrase be permissible. She wants what some would call
homoeopathic treatment. And how should they be able to love one another, if
they are not fit to be married to each other? The fitness, seems inherent