She was Hypatia to him and he vowed that the
churchmen should not deny her nor destroy her. He clenched his
fists with resolution, then went back to his book and finished
it. He loved it so well that he forgave the Church and the clergy
somewhat for the sake of this clergyman who had spoken so sturdily
for truth and beauty and mercy. He loved the book so well that he
even read the preface and learned that Hypatia really lived once
and was virtuous, though pagan, and was stripped and slain at
the Christian altar, chopped and mutilated with oyster shells in
a literal ostracism, her bones burned and her ashes flung into
the sea.
The lesson Kingsley drew from her fate was that the Church was
fatally wrong to sanction "those habits of doing evil that good
may come, of pious intrigue, and at last of open persecution,
which are certain to creep in wheresoever men attempt to set up
a merely religious empire, independent of human relationships
and civil laws." The preacher-novelist warned the Church of now
that the same old sins of then were still at work.
Jim closed the book and returned to the window to study Charity.
He vowed that he would protect her from that ostracism. His wealth
was but a broken sword, but it should save her.
He felt it childish of her to be so set upon a wedding at the hands
of one of the clergymen who stoned her, but he liked her better for
finding something childish and stubborn in her. She was so good,
so wise, so noble, so all-for-others, that she needed a bit of
obstinate foolishness to keep her from being absolute marble.
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