"If so, it will be God's will and I shall not complain" (here Bickley snorted), "though I do not see what you can know about it.

But why should you cast reflections on the early Christians who were people of strong principle living in rough times, and had to wage war against an established devil-worship?
I know you are angry because they smashed up the statues of Venus and so forth, but had I been in their place I should have done the same." "Of course you would, who doubts it?
But as for the early Christians and their iconoclastic performances--well, curse them, that's all!" and he sprang up and left the room.
I followed him.
Let it not be supposed from the above scene that there was any ill-feeling between Bastin and Bickley.

On the contrary they were much attached to each other, and this kind of quarrel meant no more than the strong expression of their individual views to which they were accustomed from their college days.

For instance Bastin was always talking about the early Christians and missionaries, while Bickley loathed both, the early Christians because of the destruction which they had wrought in Egypt, Italy, Greece and elsewhere, of all that was beautiful; and the missionaries because, as he said, they were degrading and spoiling the native races and by inducing them to wear clothes, rendering them liable to disease.

Bastin would answer that their souls were more important than their bodies, to which Bickley replied that as there was no such thing as a soul except in the stupid imagination of priests, he differed entirely on the point.