[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—The first sentence of his letter shows that Mr. Carroll has missed the import of my remark that we were not botn with a creed. My wish was to convey the meaning that we were born among many creeds from which we might eventually choose. I think I made this quite plain, but his desire to gain a point has led him to adopt the rhetoric of G. K. Chesterton in an endeavour to prove that we must accept one, and that, his. Of course, the fact that we are not born with mathematical principles does not invalidate these principles, but no one can deny without sophistry that the fact that we are born without a creed does render the adoption of one creed amongst many a matter contingent on our upbringing and education.
I assure Mr. Carroll that I nev.r had any fear for those whose "upbringing and subsequent education" gave them no chance of embracing Christianity. Neither am I dis- tressed because there are many, and the number is increasing, who, despite their "upbringing and subsequent education," are unable to embrace a particular creed. For myself, I have no fear for the hereafter : I do not drug myself with religion, and my reason, as divine in origin as anything else, prefers to be tossed on the seas of a divine discontent to being anchored snugly in the harbour of faith.—! am,
Sir, &c., FRED BALL. 91 St. Andrew's Road, Lower Bebington.
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