Looking back now at the
conversation, I can remember that actually at the very moment I was
talking of the Holy Ghost I was noticing how Mr. Bullock's dicky would
keep escaping from his waistcoat. I wonder if the great missionary
saints of the middle ages had to contend with this accumulation of
social conventions with which we are faced nowadays. It seems to me
that in everything--in art, in religion, in mere ordinary everyday life
and living--man is adding daily to the wall that separates him from
God."
"H'm, yes," said the Rector, "all this only means that you are growing
up. The child is nearer to God than the man. Wordsworth said it better
than I can say it. Similarly, the human race must grow away from God as
it takes upon itself the burden of knowledge. That surely is inherent in
the fall of man. No philosopher has yet improved upon the first chapter
of Genesis as a symbolical explanation of humanity's plight. When man
was created--or if you like to put it evolved--there must have been an
exact moment at which he had the chance of remaining where he was--in
other words, in the Garden of Eden--or of developing further along his
own lines with free will. Satan fell from pride. It is natural to assume
that man, being tempted by Satan, would fall from the same sin, though
the occasion, of his fall might be the less heroic sin of curiosity.
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