"The Church of to-day represents some results of the great Reformation. That Reformation was due to the intelligence of those men who perceived that it had become the enemy to freedom; the enemy to the development of thought; the enemy to the aspirations of a great nation. The nation rejoiced in the freedom of thought of which the great charter was the Reformation. But during the hundreds of years that have elapsed since that Reformation, some enormous changes have been brought about in the daily life of the people of this great nation. The people are being educated, and the Church must sooner or later face the fact that as education spreads church-going decreases.
Why is that, I ask you?"
"Because men are growing more wicked every day."
"But they are not. Crime is steadily decreasing as education is spreading, and yet people will not go to church. They will go to lectures, to bands of music, to political demonstrations, but they will not go to church. The reason they will not go is because they know that they will hear within the church the arguments of men whose minds are stunted by a narrow theological course against every discovery of science or result of investigation. You know how the best minds in the Church ridiculed the discoveries of geology, of biology, ending, of course, by reluctantly accepting the teachings of the men whom they reviled."
"You said all that in your paper, Mr. Holland, and yet I tell you that I abhor your paper--that I shuddered when I read what you wrote about the Bible. The words that are in the Bible have given to millions of poor souls a consolation that science could never bring to them."
"And those consoling words are what I would read to the people every day of the week, not the words which may have a certain historical signification, but which breathe a very different spirit from the spirit of Christianity. Phyllis, it is to be the aim of my life to help on the great work of making the Church once more the Church of the people--of making it in reality the exponent of Christianity and Judaism. That is my aim, and I want you to be my helper in this work."
"And I tell you that I shall oppose you by all the means in my power, paltry though my power may be."
Her eyes were flashing and she made a little automatic motion with her hands, as if sweeping something away from before her. He had become pale and there was a light in his eyes. He felt angry at this girl who had shown herself ready to argue with him,--in her girlish fashion, of course,--and who, after listening to his incontrovertible arguments, fell back resolutely upon a platitude, and considered that she had got the better of him.
She had got the better of him, too; that was the worst of it; his object in going to her, in arguing with her, was to induce her to promise to marry him, and he had failed.
It was on this account he was angry. He might have had a certain consciousness of succeeding as a theologian, but he had undoubtedly failed as a lover. He was angry. He was as little accustomed as other clergymen to be withstood by a girl.
"I am disappointed in you," said he. "I fancied that when I--when I----" It was in his mind to say that he had selected her out of a large number of candidates to be his helpmeet, but he pulled himself up in time, and the pause that he made seemed purely emotional. "When I loved you and got your promise to love me in return, you would share with me all the glory, the persecution, the work incidental to this crusade on behalf of the truth, but now---- Ah! you can never have loved me."
"Perhaps you are right, indeed," said she meekly. She was ready to cede him this point if he set any store by it.
"Take care," said he, with some measure of sternness. "Take care, if you fancy you love another man, that he may be worthy of you."
"I do not love another man, Mr. Holland," said she gently; scarcely regretfully.
"Do you not?" said he, with equal gentleness. "Then I will hope."
"You will do very wrong."
"You cannot say that without loving someone else. I would not like to hear of your loving such a man as Herbert Courtland."
She started at that piece of impertinence, and then, without the slightest further warning, she felt her body blaze from head to foot.
She was speechless with indignation.
"Perhaps I should have said a word of warning to you before." He had now assumed the calm dignity of a clergyman who knows what is due to himself. "I am not one to place credence in vulgar gossip; I thought that your father, perhaps, might have given you a hint. Mrs. Linton is undoubtedly a very silly woman. God forbid that I should ever hear rumor play with your name as I have heard it deal with hers."
