"That's just what I mean. That's just why I wouldn't have any more

respect for myself if I should go to your church than if I joined in one

of Mammy's foot-washings down at the river and fell in a fit of shouting

in which it took two burly coons to 'hold my spirit down,' as she

describes those gymnastics to me. I hate you and I hate my friends for

indulging in religion, because it is just as 'potent an agent of

intoxication' as exists to-day, and it blinds us to the need of work

along scientific lines for the immediate improvement of the race. What

right have we to intoxicate reason with religion? If religion is

anything it must be reason." I fairly hurled my words of half-baked

Advertisement..

skepticism at him, with the vision of father and Dabney digging in the

garden, still in my eyes.

"I felt just as you do about it a year ago to-day," he answered me

quietly. "As you state the case of religion as emotion versus reason, it

doesn't exist. Religion is reason plus emotion, and when you combine the

two the eyes of your soul are open, whereas they had been closed. Nobody

can tell you about it, but you begin really to live when you see and

comprehend. Yes, it is going to take all the scientific reason the world

possesses to start its salvation, but it will not get far without

'emotion,' as you call what I know is love of God, and, through that

love, compassion for man."

"The assumption that every man is blind who does not believe as you do,

stops all argument," I said scornfully.

"I didn't come to talk religion with you; I came over to get that apple

dumpling off my conscience, as I couldn't digest it because it wasn't

there. I preach twice, on Sunday and on Wednesday night, and I'm in my

study behind the altar every afternoon that I'm not playing tennis. I'll

be there any time by appointment." The worldly and protective raillery

in that young Methodist minister's voice almost interrupted my religious

researches, but I was in depths that were strange to me, and I was

floundering for a line out.

"I'll never be there," I flared at him, then went on with my

floundering. "If a man is blind, how can he gain the sight that you

arrogate to yourself?"

"A great man once prayed, 'Lord, help thou my unbelief,'" was the gentle

answer in which was that queer note of apostolic surety with which I

heard him address the woman in the garden that night.

"I can't pray--there's nothing there," I said in a very small voice that

I could scarcely recognize as my own. "Oh, I mean that we are all

floundering, and where can we get the lifeline? Where did you get the

line that you think will pull you out of the vortex?"




Most Popular