The Ball and the Cross

The editorial office of The Atheist had for some years past become less and lessprominently interesting as a feature of Ludgate Hill. The paper was unsuited to theatmosphere. It showed an interest in the Bible unknown in the district, and a knowledge ofthat volume to which nobody else on Ludgate Hill could make any conspicuous claim. Itwas in vain that the editor of The Atheist filled his front window with fierce and finaldemands as to what Noah in the Ark did with the neck of the...
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The editorial office of The Atheist had for some years past become less and lessprominently interesting as a feature of Ludgate Hill. The paper was unsuited to theatmosphere. It showed an interest in the Bible unknown in the district, and a knowledge ofthat volume to which nobody else on Ludgate Hill could make any conspicuous claim. Itwas in vain that the editor of The Atheist filled his front window with fierce and finaldemands as to what Noah in the Ark did with the neck of the giraffe. It was in vain that heasked violently, as for the last time, how the statement "God is Spirit" could be reconciledwith the statement "The earth is His footstool." It was in vain that he cried with an accusingenergy that the Bishop of London was paid L12,000 a year for pretending to believe thatthe whale swallowed Jonah. It was in vain that he hung in conspicuous places the mostthrilling scientific calculations about the width of the throat of a whale. Was it nothing tothem all they that passed by? Did his sudden and splendid and truly sincere indignationnever stir any of the people pouring down Ludgate Hill? Never. The little man who editedThe Atheist would rush from his shop on starlit evenings and shake his fist at St. Paul's inthe passion of his holy war upon the holy place. He might have spared his emotion. Thecross at the top of St. Paul's and The Atheist shop at the foot of it were alike remote from theworld. The shop and the Cross were equally uplifted and alone in the empty heavens.To the little man who edited The Atheist, a fiery little Scotchman, with fiery, red hair andbeard, going by the name of Turnbull, all this decline in public importance seemed not somuch sad or even mad, but merely bewildering and unaccountable. He had said the worstthing that could be said; and it seemed accepted and ignored like the ordinary second bestof the politicians. Every day his blasphemies looked more glaring, and every day the dustlay thicker upon them. It made him feel as if he were moving in a world of idiots. Heseemed among a race of men who smiled when told of their own death, or looked vacantlyat the Day of Judgement. Year after year went by, and year after year the death of God in ashop in Ludgate became a less and less important occurrence. All the forward men of hisage discouraged Turnbull. The socialists said he was cursing priests when he should becursing capitalists. The artists said that the soul was most spiritual, not when freed fromreligion, but when freed from morality. Year after year went by, and at least a man came bywho treated Mr. Turnbull's secularist shop with a real respect and seriousness. He was ayoung man in a grey plaid, and he smashed the window.