Not everyone would agree with C.S. Lewis's assessment. The young Scot had not been long in the English congregation before his convictions were evident.
Genuine faith disdains the values of the world and forswears the vanities of the world.
God longs not merely to save us from hell but even to save us from our sins now, the sins which we must repudiate lest they disfigure us even more hideously. Objectors in the congregation tried to force him out by reducing his stipend by two-thirds. He stayed on for the sake of the few earnest people in the congregation, but had to leave soon, unable to deal with people who were unwilling to think and unresolved to obey. George MacDonald was born in the north of Scotland, where Gaelic myths and Old Testament stories sank into him and formed the mind that would later cherish imagination as the vehicle of spiritual truth. Even as a youth he was sensitive to the implications of what older people appeared to say thoughtlessly.