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Iron cruelty, an iron insensibility to the suffering of others, the
uncompromising pursuit of his own interests, cold culture, manners
without humanity; these he had looked for, these he still thought he
saw. But to find the whole machine thus glow with the reverberation of
religious zeal, surprised him beyond words; and he laboured in vain, as
he walked, to piece together into any kind of whole his odds and ends
of knowledge--to adjust again into any kind of focus with itself, his
picture of the man beside him.
'What brought you here to the South Seas?' he asked presently.
'Many things,' said Attwater. 'Youth, curiosity, romance, the love of
the sea, and (it will surprise you to hear) an interest in missions.
That has a good deal declined, which will surprise you less. They go the
wrong way to work; they are too parsonish, too much of the old wife, and
even the old apple wife. CLOTHES, CLOTHES, are their idea; but clothes
are not Christianity, any more than they are the sun in heaven, or could
take the place of it! They think a parsonage with roses, and church
bells, and nice old women bobbing in the lanes, are part and parcel
of religion. But religion is a savage thing, like the universe it
illuminates; savage, cold, and bare, but infinitely strong.'
'And you found this island by an accident?' said Herrick.
'As you did!' said Attwater. 'And since then I have had a business, and
a colony, and a mission of my own. I was a man of the world before I was
a Christian; I'm a man of the world still, and I made my mission pay.
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