For one thing, he was conscious of a tendency to speech less reverent than his thought.

But he had not entered Beatrice's church of Darkness, indeed he had turned his back on it for ever, though, like most people, he had at different periods of his past life tarried an hour in its porch.

So he ventured on an objection.
"I am no theologian," he said, "and I am not fond of discussion on such matters.

But there are just one or two things I should like to say.

It is no argument, to my mind at least, to point to the existence of evil and unhappiness among men as a proof of the absence of a superior Mercy; for what are men that such things should not be with them?
Man, too, must own some master.