so far as my position towards the Church was concerned. I made up my mind
to leave it, but was willing to make the leaving as little obtrusive as
possible. On my return to Sibsey I stated clearly the ground on which I
stood. I was ready to attend the Church services, joining in such parts
as were addressed to "the Supreme Being", for I was still heartily
Theistic; "the Father", shorn of all the horrible accessories hung round
him by Christianity, was still to me an object of adoration, and I could
still believe in and worship One who was "righteous in all His ways, and
holy in all His works", although the Moloch to whom was sacrificed the
well-beloved son had passed away for ever from my creed. Christian I was
not, though Theist I was, and I felt that the wider and more generous
faith would permit me to bow to the common God with my Christian
brethren, if only I was not compelled to pay homage to that "Son of Man"
whom Christians believed divine, homage which to me had become idolatry,
insulting to the "One God", to him of whom Jesus himself had spoken as of
"my God and your God".

Simply enough was the difficulty arranged for the moment. It was agreed
that I should withdraw myself from the "Holy Communion"--for in that
service, full of the recognition of Jesus as Deity, I could not join
without hypocrisy. The ordinary services I would attend, merely remaining
silent during those portions of them in which I could not honestly take
part, and while I knew that these changes in a clergyman's wife could not
pass unnoticed in a country village, I yet felt that nothing less than
this was consistent with barest duty. While I had merely doubted, I had
kept silence, and no act of mine had suggested doubt to others. Now that
I had no doubt that Christianity was a delusion, I would no longer act as
though I believed that to be of God which heart and intellect rejected as
untrue.