The Man who Missed the War Read Online Free Page A

wine-merchant-bookseller, so that I could spread both gospels simultaneously! But perhaps you’re one of those who regard alcohol as the “devil’s milk”—eh?’
    ‘Good Lord, no!’ laughed Philip. ‘It’s simply that I don’t like the taste of gin, whisky or brandy, and, to me, beer is bitter and claret sour. I often drink cider, though.’
    ‘I see. It sounds like a case of a sweet palate. Here’—the Canonpulled the stopper out of a second decanter—‘try half a glass of this rich old Madeira. Leave it if you don’t like it.’
    He gave a deep laugh as Philip first sipped the wine, then nodded and drank it down. ‘Heaven knows what some of my more austere brethren would say if they could see me leading a young teetotaller into the arms of “the demon Drink”! Still, most of the Blue Ribbon clergy know my views already. True temperance is not the churlish rejection of one of God’s greatest gifts to Man, but a reasonable moderation in its use!’
    It was hours later when Philip, filled with the well-being which follows an admirable dinner and a mental content begotten of the intimate atmosphere of the great book-lined room, said, feeling confident that he could not give offence: ‘You know, somehow, when I’m talking to you, I don’t feel as if I’m talking to a clergyman at all.’
    ‘That’s hardly surprising,’ was the prompt reply. ‘You see, with people like you, Philip, I put aside my workaday mask and say what I really think, instead of the sort of thing that Christian convention compels me to say when I meet the people I bully from my pulpit each Sunday.’
    ‘Do you mean that you don’t really subscribe to the Christian convention, then?’
    The Canon’s face broke into a smile. ‘Only a fool would seek to belittle Christ’s greatness or to deny the immense value which the example He set has proved to mankind. On the other hand, only a fool could believe in eternal damnation or many other heathenish conceptions that the Christian Churches inherited from the Jews.’
    ‘True enough,’ Philip nodded, ‘but if you feel that don’t you find it a bit of a strain to carry on as a Christian priest?’
    ‘Not at all. When I was quite a young man I realised that my work was priestcraft—the spreading of the true knowledge of Good and Evil among those ready to receive it, and a life-long fight against lies, meanness, hypocrisy, tyranny, dirt and disease. Ordination in the Church of England was simply the best way in which I could fulfil my priesthood.’
    The Canon paused, pulled at the lobe of his left ear and went on: ‘You see, Philip, the thing the majority of people fail to realise is that there are only two basic religions. One is the belief in abeneficent Creator, who imbues each of us with a part of himself which, acting as an inner voice, gives us unfailing counsel at all stages of our journey on the upward path. The other is Satanism, which offers its votaries short cuts to wealth and power if they will ignore the voice and become the servants of destruction, brutality and uncleanness. All the great religions are a mixture of these two. Each holds the hidden core of truth buried under the often meaningless or distorted ceremonies with which many generations of false priests have overlaid it. Or, as in our own religion, entirely Satanic conceptions such as that incredible old brute Jehovah, who revelled in the smell of burnt offerings and blood sacrifices, have become hopelessly mixed up with God the Father, to whom we owe the Creation of all things beautiful. The two original religions existed in all their purity side by side, but as warring entities, in the great Island Kingdom of Atlantis. The confusion arose when that remarkable civilisation was almost entirely wiped out by the Flood, nearly eleven thousand years ago.’
    Philip smiled. ‘How strange that you, who have just inferred that you consider most of the Old Testament as nonsense, should believe the Flood to have