Micah Clarke by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — Read

With the home influences which I have described, it may be readily / imagined that my young mind turned very much upon the subject of / religion, the more so as my father and mother took different views upon / it. The old Puritan soldier held that the bible alone contained all / things essential to salvation, and that though it might be advisable / that those who were gifted with wisdom or eloquence should expound the / Scriptures to their brethren, it was by no means necessary, but rather / hurtful and degrading, that any organised body of ministers or of / bishops should claim special prerogatives, or take the place of / mediators between the creature and the Creator. For the wealthy / dignitaries of the Church, rolling in their carriages to their / cathedrals, in order to preach the doctrines of their Master, who wore / His sandals out in tramping over the countryside, he professed the most / bitter contempt; nor was he more lenient to those poorer members of the / clergy who winked at the vices of their patrons that they might secure / a seat at their table, and who would sit through a long evening of / profanity rather than bid good-bye to the cheesecakes and the wine / flask. That such men represented religious truth was abhorrent to / his mind, nor would he even give his adhesion to that form of church / government dear to the Presbyterians, where a general council of the / ministers directed the affairs of their church. Every man was, in his / opinion, equal in the eyes of the Almighty, and none had a right to / claim any precedence over his neighbour in matters of religion. The book / was written for all, and all were equally able to read it, provided that / their minds were enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

My mother, on the other hand, held that the very essence of a church / was that it should have a hierarchy and a graduated government within / itself, with the king at the apex, the archbishops beneath him, the / bishops under their control, and so down through the ministry to the / common folk. Such was, in her opinion, the Church as established in the / beginning, and no religion without these characteristics could lay any / claim to being the true one. Ritual was to her of as great importance / as morality, and if every tradesman and farmer were allowed to invent / prayers, and change the service as the fancy seized him, it would be / impossible to preserve the purity of the Christian creed. She agreed / that religion was based upon the Bible, but the Bible was a book which / contained much that was obscure, and unless that obscurity were / cleared away by a duly elected and consecrated servant of God, a / lineal descendant of the Disciples, all human wisdom might not serve to / interpret it aright. That was my mother's position, and neither argument / nor entreaty could move her from it. The only question of belief on / which my two parents were equally ardent was their mutual dislike / and distrust of the Roman Catholic forms of worship, and in this the / Churchwoman was every whit as decided as the fanatical Independent.