Thomas Wingfold. Volume III by George MacDonald

The acquaintance between the draper and the gate-keeper rapidly / ripened into friendship. Very generally, as soon as he had shut his / shop, Drew would walk to the park-gate to see Polwarth; and three / times a week at least, the curate made one of the party. Much was / then talked, more was thought, and I venture to say, more yet was / understood.

One evening the curate went earlier than usual, and had tea with the / Polwarths.

"Do you remember," he asked of his host, "once putting to me the / question what our Lord came into this world for?"

"I do," answered Polwarth.

"And you remember I answered you wrong: I said it was to save the / world."

"I do. But remember, I said _primarily_, for of course he did come / to save the world."

"Yes, just so you put it. Well, I think I can answer the question / correctly now, and in learning the true answer I have learned much. / Did he not come first of all to do the will of his Father? Was not / his Father first with him always and in everything -- his fellow-men / next -- for they were his Father's?"

"I need not say it -- you know that you are right. Jesus is tenfold a / real person to you -- is he not -- since you discovered that truth?"

"I think so; I hope so. It does seem as if a grand simple reality / had begun to dawn upon me out of the fog -- the form as of a man pure / and simple, _because_ the eternal son of the Father."

"And now, may I not ask -- are you able to accept the miracles, things / in themselves so improbable?"

"If we suppose the question settled as to whether the man was what / he said, then all that remains is to ask whether the works reported / of him are consistent with what you can see of the character of the / man."

"And to you they seem -- ?"

"Some consistent, others not. Concerning the latter I look for more / light."

"Meantime let me ask you a question about them. What was the main / object of miracles?"

"One thing at least I have learned, Mr. Polwarth and that is, not to / answer any question of yours in a hurry," said Wingfold. "I will, if / you please, take this one home with me, and hold the light to it."

"Do," said Polwarth, "and you will find it return you the light / threefold. -- One word more, ere Mr. Drew comes: do you still think of / giving up your curacy?"

"I have almost forgotten I ever thought of such a thing. Whatever / energies I may or may not have, I know one thing for certain, that I / could not devote them to anything else I should think entirely worth / doing. Indeed nothing else seems interesting enough -- nothing to / repay the labour, but the telling of my fellow-men about the one man / who is the truth, and to know whom is the life. Even if there be no / hereafter, I would live my time believing in a grand thing that / ought to be true if it is not. No facts can take the place of / truths, and if these be not truths, then is the loftiest part of our / nature a waste. Let me hold by the better than the actual, and fall / into nothingness off the same precipice with Jesus and John and Paul / and a thousand more, who were lovely in their lives, and with their / death make even the nothingness into which they have passed like the / garden of the Lord. I will go further, Polwarth, and say, I would / rather die for evermore believing as Jesus believed, than live for / evermore believing as those that deny him. If there be no God, I / feel assured that existence is and could be but a chaos of / contradictions, whence can emerge nothing worthy to be called a / truth, nothing worth living for. -- No, I will not give up my curacy. / I will teach that which IS good, even if there should be no God to / make a fact of it, and I will spend my life on it, in the growing / hope, which MAY become assurance, that there is indeed a perfect / God, worthy of being the Father of Jesus Christ, and that it was / BECAUSE they are true, that these things were lovely to me and to so / many men and women, of whom some have died for them, and some would / be yet ready to die."

"I thank my God to hear you say so. Nor will you stand still there," / said Polwarth. "But here comes Mr. Drew!"