To be beaten in argument was naturally the one thing which such a man as Mr.Raeburn could not forgive.He might in time have learned to tolerate a difference of opinion, he would beyond a doubt have forgiven almost any of the failings that he could understand, would have paid his son's college debts without a murmur, would have overlooked anything connected with what he considered the necessary process of "sowing his wild oats." But that the fellow should presume to think out the greatest problems in the world, should set up his judgment against Paley's, and worst of all should actually and palpably beat HIM in argument--this was an unpardonable offense.
A stormy scene ensued.The father, in ungovernable fury, heaped upon the son every abusive epithet he could think of.Luke Raeburn spoke not a word; he was strong and self-controlled; moreover, he knew that he had had the best of the argument.He was human, however, and his heart was wrung by his father's bitterness.
Standing there on that summer day, in the study of the Scotch parsonage, the man's future was sealed.He suffered there the loss of all things, but at the very time there sprung up in him an enthusiasm for the cause of free thought, a passionate, burning zeal for the opinions for which he suffered, which never left him, but served as the great moving impulse of his whole subsequent life.
"I tell you, you are not fit to be in a gentleman's house,"thundered the father."A rank atheist, a lying infidel! It is against nature that you should call a parsonage your home.""It is not particularly home-like," said the son, bitterly."I can leave it when you please.""Can!" exclaimed the father, in a fury, "you WILL leave it, sir, and this very day too! I disown you from this time.I'll have no atheist for my son! Change your views or leave the house at once."Perhaps he expected his son to make some compromise; if so he showed what a very slight knowledge he had of his character.Luke Raeburn had certainly not been prepared for such extreme harshness, but with the pain and grief and indignation there rose in his heart a mighty resoluteness.With a face as hard and rugged as the granite rocks without, he wished his father goodbye, and obeyed his orders.
Then had followed such a struggle with the world as few men would have gone through with.Cut off from all friends and relations by his avowal of atheism, and baffled again and again in seeking to earn his living, he had more than once been on the very brink of starvation.By sheer force of will he had won his way, had risen above adverse circumstances, had fought down obstacles, and conquered opposing powers.Before long he had made fresh friends and gained many followers, for there was an extraordinary magnetism about the man which almost compelled those who were brought into contact with him to reverence him.
It was a curious history.First there had been that time of grievous doubt; then he had been thrown upon the world friendless and penniless, with the beliefs and hopes hitherto most sacred to him dead, and in their place an aching blank.He had suffered much.Treated on all sides with harshness and injustice, it was indeed wonderful that he had not developed into a mere hater, a passionate down-puller.But there was in his character a nobility which would not allow him to rest at this low level.The bitter hostility and injustice which he encountered did indeed warp his mind, and every year of controversy made it more impossible for him to take an unprejudiced view of Christ's teaching; but nevertheless he could not remain a mere destroyer.
In that time of blankness, when he had lost all faith in God, when he had been robbed of friendship and family love, he had seized desperately on the one thing left him--the love of humanity.To him atheism meant not only the assertion--"The word God is a word without meaning, it conveys nothing to my understanding." He added to this barren confession of an intellectual state a singularly high code of duty.Such a code as could only have emanated from one about whom there lingered what Carlyle has termed a great after-shine of Christianity.He held that the only happiness worth having was that which came to a man while engaged in promoting the general good.That the whole duty of man was to devote himself to the service of others.And he lived his creed.
