"No," he murmured. "I—I guess I know only the world's idea of love."

"And that is love's counterfeit, self-love, sentimentalism, sex-mesmerism, and all that," she added. "But now, back to your work again. You're going to write, write, write! My, but the world is hungry for real literature! Your yearning to meet that need is a sign of your ability to do it. But, remember, everything that comes to you comes from within. You are, in fact, a miner; and your mine is your mind; and that is unlimited, for God is the only mind, infinite and omnipresent. Now you are going to mine that mind.

"Listen," she went on hurriedly. "Don't be afraid to be afraid. We never fear a real thing; we fear only our false thoughts of things. Always those thoughts are absolutely wrong, and we wake up and find that we were fearing only fear-thoughts themselves. Haven't you ever noticed it? Now destroy the chains of fear which limit your thought, and God will issue!

"Well," without waiting for his reply, "now you have reached that plane of thought where you don't really care for what the world has to offer you. You have ceased to want to be rich, or famous. You are not afraid to be obscure and poor. You have learned, at least in part, that the real business of this life lies in seeking good, in manifesting and expressing it in every walk, and in reflecting it constantly to your fellow-men. Having learned that, you are ready to live. Remember, there is no luck, no such thing as chance. The cause of everything that can possibly come to you lies within yourself. It is a function of your thought. The thought that you allow to enter your mentality and become active there, later becomes externalized. Be, oh, so careful, then, about your thought, and the basis upon which it rests! For, in your writing, you have no right to inflict false thought upon your credulous fellow-mortals."

"But," he replied, "we are told that in literature we must deal with human realities, and with things as they are. The human mind exists, and has to be dealt with."

"The human mind does not exist, Sidney, except as supposition. There are no human realities. The world still awaits the one who will show it things as they really are. Human realities, so-called, are the horrible, ghastly unrealities of carnal thought, without any basis of the divine Christ-principle. I know, we are told that the great books of the world are those which preserve and interpret its life. Alas! is it true greatness to detail, over and over again in endless recital, the carnal motives of the human mind, its passions and errors, its awful mesmerism, its final doom? Yes, perhaps, on one condition: that, like a true critic, you picture human concepts only to show their unreality, their nothingness, and to show how they may be overcome."

"But most books—"

"Ah, yes, most books are written only to amuse the dispirited human mind for a brief hour, to make it forget for a moment its troubles. They are literary narcotics; they are sops to jaded appetites, that's all. A book, for example, that pictures an injured man discovering a great treasure, and then using it to carry out his schemes of revenge—well, what influence for good has such a work? It is only a stimulus to evil, Sidney. But had it shown him using that great wealth to bless his persecutors and turn them from their mesmerism to real life and good—"

"Such things don't happen in this world, Carmen."

"But they could, and should, Sidney dear. And they will, some day. Then will come the new literature, the literature of good! And it will make people think, rather than relieve them from the ennui of solid thought, as our present novels do. The intellectual palate then will find only insipidity in such books as pour from our presses now. The ability to converse glibly about authors who wallow in human unrealities will then no longer be considered the hall-mark of culture. Culture in that day will be conformity to truth."

The lad smiled at the enthusiastic girl. "Little sister," he said, "you are a beautiful idealist."

"But," came her quick reply, "are you not a living illustration of the practicability of my idealism, Sidney?"

The boy choked, and tears filled his eyes. Carmen stole an arm about him. "The most practical man who ever lived, Sidney dear, was Jesus. And he was the greatest idealist. He had ideas that differed very radically from other people's, but he did not hide them for fear of giving offense. He was not afraid to shock people with the truth about themselves. He tore down, yes; but he then reconstructed, and on a foundation of demonstrable truth. He was not afraid to defy the Rabbis, the learned, and the puffed-up. He did not bow abjectly before the mandarins and pedagogues. Had he done so, and given the people what they wanted and were accustomed to, they would have made him a king—and his mission would have been a dead failure!"

"And for that they slew him," returned the boy.

"It is the cowardly fear of slaughter, Sidney, that keeps people from coming out and standing for what they know to be right to-day. You are not one of those cravens."

"But the people who do that, Carmen, are called demagogues and muck-rakers!"

She laughed. "And the muck-rakers, Sidney, have made a sorry mess, haven't they? They destroy without ruth, but seldom, if ever, put forth a sane suggestion for the betterment of conditions. They traffic in sensationalism, carping criticism, and abuse. 'To find fault,' said Demosthenes, 'is easy, and in every man's power; but to point out the proper remedy is the proof of a wise counselor.' The remedy which I point out, Sidney, is the Christ-principle; and all I ask is that mankind seek to demonstrate it, even as Jesus bade us do. He was a success, Sidney, the greatest success the world has ever known. And why? Because he followed ideals with utter loyalty—because he voiced truth without fear—because he made his business the service of humanity. He took his work seriously, not for money, not for human preferment, but for mankind. And his work bears the stamp of eternity."

"I'm afraid—" he began.

"You're not afraid, Sidney!" the girl quickly interrupted. "Oh, why does the human mind always look for and expect that which it does not want to see come or happen!"

The boy laughed heartily at the quick sally of her delightfully quotidian thought. "You didn't let me finish," he said. "I was going to say that I'm afraid if I write and speak only of spiritual things I shall not be understood by the world, nor even given a hearing."

"Well, don't use that word 'afraid.' My! how the human mind clings to everything, even words, that express its chief bogy, fear."

"All right; I accept the rebuke. But, my question?"

"That was the case with Jesus. And yet, has anything, written or spoken, ever endured as his spiritual teachings? The present-day novel or work of fiction is as fleeting as the human thought it attempts to crystallize. Of the millions of books published, a handful endure. Those are they which illustrate the triumph of good over evil in human thought. And the greatest of such books is the Bible."

"Well, I'm hunting for a subject now."

"Don't hunt. Wait—and know! The subject will then choose you. It will pelt you. It will drive you to the task of transcribing it. Just as one is now driving me. Sidney—perhaps I can give you the subject! Perhaps I am the channel for this, too!"

He looked at her inquisitively. "Well," bending over closer to her, "what is it, little sister?"

The girl looked out over the dripping shrubs and the soft snow. But her thought was not there. She saw a man, a priest, she knew not where, but delving, plodding, digging for the truth which the human mind has buried under centuries and centuries of material debris. She saw him, patiently bearing his man-made burden, striving to shield a tender, abandoned girl, and to transfer to her his own great worldly knowledge, but without its dross. She saw the mighty sacrifice, when the man tore her from himself, and thrust her out beyond the awful danger in which he dwelt. She understood now. The years had taught her much. It was love—aye, the love that alone makes men great, the love that lays down human life in self-immolating service.

She turned to the waiting lad. "You will write it, Sidney? I will tell you the whole beautiful story. It is an illustration of the way love works through human channels. And perhaps—perhaps, some day, the book may reach him—yes, some day. And it will tell him—oh, Sidney, it will tell him that I know, and that I love him, love him, love him!"

* * * * *

In the office of the manager of the Express three heads were close together that morning, and three faces bore outward evidence of the serious thought within.

"Miss Wall tells me, Ned," Hitt was saying, "that her father used to be associated with Ames, and that, at his demise, he left his estate, badly entangled, for Ames to settle. Now it transpires that Ames has been cunning enough to permit Miss Wall to draw upon his bank almost without limit, he making up any deficit with his own personal notes."

"Ah!" commented Haynerd. "I think I see the shadow of his fine hand!"

"And now," resumed Hitt, "she is given to understand that Ames has been obliged by the bank examiner to withdraw his personal notes as security for her deficits, and that the revenue from her estate must be allowed to accrue to the benefit of the Ames bank until such time as all obligations are met."

"Beautiful!" ejaculated Haynerd. "In other words, Elizabeth is simply cut off!"

"Just so. And now, another thing: Madam Beaubien's lawyer called on her to-day, and informed her that Hood had gone into court and secured an injunction, tying up all revenue from her estate until it can be unraveled. That cuts off her income, likewise."

Haynerd whistled. "The hound!" he ejaculated. "Ames is out to do up the Express, eh?"

"There is no doubt of it, Ned," returned Hitt seriously. "And to utterly ruin all connected with it."

"Then, by God, we'll fight him to the last ditch!" cried the excited Haynerd.

"I think you forget, Ned, that we have a lady with us," nodding toward Miss Wall, "and that you are seriously trying to reform, for Carmen's sake."

"I beg your pardon, Elizabeth," said Haynerd meekly. "I really am trying to be decent, you know. But when I think of Ames it's like a red rag to a bull!"

Miss Wall laughed. "Never mind, Ned. I admire your fighting spirit."

"Of course," Hitt continued, "oil still flows from our paternal wells. But in order to raise money at once I shall be obliged either to sell my oil holdings or mortgage them. They have got to take care of us all now, including Madam Beaubien."

"Where's Carmen?" asked Haynerd suddenly.

"Home, with Sidney. There's another anomaly: while Ames is trying to ruin us, that girl is saving his son. Great world, isn't it?"

"It's a hell of a world!" cried Haynerd. "I—I beg your pardon, Elizabeth. The fact is, either you or I will have to retire from this meeting, for I'm getting mad. I—I may say things yet!"

"Say anything you want to, Ned. I like to hear your sulphurous language to-day. It helps to express my own feelings," replied the woman.

"The circulation of the Express," Hitt went on, "is entirely artificial. Our expense is tremendous, and our revenue slight. And still Carmen insists on branching out and putting into practical form her big ideas. Limitation is a word that is not in her vocabulary!"

"Hitt, can't we fight Ames with his own fire? What about that Wales affair?"

"Ames is very cunning," answered Hitt. "When he learned that the cotton schedule had been altered in the Ways and Means Committee, he promptly closed down his Avon mills. That was to scare Congress. Then he resumed, but on half time. That was a plea of distress. I presume he will later return to full time, but with a reduced scale of wages. He's trying to coerce Congress. Now how does he intend to do it? This way: he will force a strike at Avon—a February strike—four thousand hands out in the cold. Meantime, he'll influence every other spinner in the country to do likewise. They'll all follow his lead. Now, can Congress stand up against that sort of argument? And, besides, he will grease the palms of a large number of our dignified statesmen, you may be sure!"

"Mr. Hitt," said Miss Wall, "I suggest that you send Carmen to Avon at once. I know of no one who can get to the bottom of things as she can. Let her collect the facts regarding the situation down there, and then—"

"Send her first to Washington!" interrupted Haynerd. "Have her hang around the lobbies of the Capitol for a while, and meet a lot of those old sap-heads. What information she won't succeed in worming out of them isn't in 'em, that's all!"

"But," objected Hitt, "if she knew that we would use her information for a personal attack upon Ames, she'd leave us."

"There's no objection to her getting the facts, anyway, is there?" demanded Haynerd, waxing hot again.

"N—no, I suppose not. But that will take additional money. Very well, I'll do it. I'll put a mortgage on my Ohio holdings at once."

"I don't think I would be afraid," suggested Miss Wall. "We might not use the information Carmen may collect in Avon or Washington, but something, I am sure, is bound to come out of it. Something always comes out of what she does. She's the greatest asset the Express has. We must use her."

"All well and good," put in Haynerd. "And yet, if she finds anybody down there who needs help, even the President himself, she'll throw the Express to the winds, just as she did in Sidney's case. You can't bank on her!"

"No, that's true, Ned, for while we preach she's off somewhere practicing. We evolve great truths, and she applies and demonstrates them. But she has saved Sidney—her Christ did it through her. And she has given the lad to us, a future valuable man."

"Sure—if we are to have any future," growled Ned.

"See here," retorted Hitt, brindling, "have we in our numerous gatherings at Madam Beaubien's spoken truth or nonsense? If you believe our report, then accept and apply it. Now who's to go to Avon with Carmen?"

"Sidney," suggested Miss Wall.

"Sid?" exclaimed Haynerd. "Huh! Why, if those Magyars down there discovered he was Ames's son, they'd eat him alive!"

The telephone rang. Hitt answered the call. Then, turning to his companions:

"Waite says he wants a meeting to-night. He'd like to report on his research work. Guess we'd better call it. I'll inform Morton. No telling when we may get together again, if the girl—" He became suddenly silent, and sat some time looking vacantly out through the window.

"She goes to Avon to-morrow," he abruptly announced, "alone." His thought had been dwelling on that 'something not ourselves' which he knew was shielding and sustaining the girl.



CHAPTER 10

"We have now arrived at a subject whose interest and significance for us are incalculable," said Father Waite, standing before the little group which had assembled in their usual meeting place in the first hours of the morning, for only at that time could Hitt and Haynerd leave the Express. "We have met to discuss briefly the meaning of that marvelous record of a whole nation's search for God, the Bible. As have been men's changing concepts of that 'something not ourselves that makes for righteousness,' so have been individuals, tribes, and nations. The Bible records the development of these concepts in Israel's thought; it records the unquenchable longings of that people for truth; it records their prophetic vision, their sacred songs, their philosophy, their dreams, and their aspirations. To most of us the Bible has long been a work of profound mystery, cryptical, undecipherable. And largely, I now believe, because we were wont to approach it with the bias of preconceived theories of literal, even verbal, inspiration, and because we could not read into it the record of Israel's changing idea of God, from a wrathful, consuming Lord of human caprice and passions, to the infinite Father of love, whom Jesus revealed as the Christ-principle, which worked through him and through all who are gaining the true spiritual concept, as is this girl who sits here on my right with the lad whom you have seen rescued by the Christ from the pit of hell."

His voice choked when he referred to Carmen and Sidney. But he quickly stifled his emotion, and went on:

"In our last meeting Mr. Hitt clearly showed us how the so-called human mind has seemed to develop as the suppositional opposite of the mind that is God; and how through countless ages of human reckoning that pseudo-mind has been revealing its various types, until at length, rising ever higher in the scale of being, it revealed its human man as a mentality whose consciousness is the suppositional activity of false thought, and which builds, incessantly, mental concepts out of this kind of thought and posits them within itself as material objects, as its own body, its universe, its all. And he showed us how, little by little, that human mind's interpretations of the infinite mind's true ideas became better, under the divine infiltration of truth, until at last there developed a type, now known to us as the Jewish nation, which caught a clearer glimpse of truth, and became conscious of that 'something not ourselves' which makes for right-thinking, and consequent correct mental concepts and externalizations. This, then, was the starting point of our religion. These first glimpses of truth, and their interpretations, as set forth in the writings of the early Jewish nation, constitute the nucleus of our Bible.

"But were these records exact statements of truth? Not always. The primitive human mind could only lisp its wonderful glimpses of truth in legend and myth. And so in fable and allegory the early Israelites sought to show the power of good over evil, and thereby stimulate a desire for right conduct, based, of course, on right-thinking. And thus it is that the most significant thing in their sacred records is their many, many stories of the triumph of the spiritual over the material.

"Time passed. The Hebrew nation waxed prosperous. Their right-thinking became externalized outwardly in material abundance and physical comfort. But the people's understanding was not sufficiently great to shield them from the temptation which material wealth and power always constitute. Their vision gradually became obscured. The mist of materialism spread over it. Those wonderful flashes of truth ceased to dart across their mental horizon. Their god became a magnified concept of the human man, who dickered with them over the construction of his temples, and who, by covenants, bribes, and promises, induced them to behave themselves. Prophecy died. And at length the beautiful vision faded quite away.

"Then followed four hundred human years, during which the vicissitudes of the Hebrew nation were many and dark. But during those long centuries there developed that world wonder, a whole nation's united longing for a deliverer! The prophets promised a great change in their fallen fortunes. Expectation grew keen. Desire expanded into yearning. Their God would not forsake them. Was not His grace sufficient? Though their concept of Him had grossly degenerated, yet the deliverer would come, he must!

"And he did. In the depths of their night—in the midst of the heaviest darkness that ever lay over the world—there arose a great light. Through the densest ignorance of the human mind filtered the Christ-principle, and was set forth by the channel through which it came, the man Jesus.

"What had happened? Had there been a conference among God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to debate the sending of salvation to mankind, as recorded by the poet Milton? Alas! what a crude, materialistic conception. Had God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son? But God is Love, infinite, unchanging. And His unique Son, the Christ-principle, available to all mankind, was 'before Abraham.' Had a great, dimly perceived principle been demonstrated, namely, that, if we yearn long and earnestly for the right, it comes? Had the Jewish nation 'demonstrated' the Christ? Had their centuries of looking and expecting resulted in a saviour being manifested to them? It was a period in the unfolding of human thought when civilization had reached its lowest depths. Morality had evaporated to the dregs. Rome was become the world's harlot. A few years more, and Nero would drag his vulpine immorality across the stage. Paganism was virtue in comparison with the lust of men in that dark hour. And yet, in the very midst of it, appeared the most venerated, the most beloved man in all history, bearing the Christ-message like a flaming torch!

"'Always our being is descending into us,' said Emerson. But our true being can be none other than infinite mind's idea of itself. Our true individuality must be the way that mind regards us. And thus it was that Israel's true being descended, filtering in through the thick mists of error. That true being was the deliverer, par excellence, for it was the message of truth that bade men deny themselves, their carnal selves, and know but the one God, infinite mind. That was the grace sufficient for them, that would have solved their problems, that would have enabled them to lay off the 'old man' and his woes and afflictions, and put on the 'new man,' divine mind's image. But the carnal mind sought a material kingdom. It wanted, not spirit, but matter. It cruelly rejected the message-bearer, and sought to kill his message by slaying him on the cross. And thereby the Jewish nation rent itself asunder, and sank into carnal oblivion. Ah, how they have been cursed by the crucifixion of Jesus!

"Men ask to-day: Did Jesus really live? Or is he a mythical character, like the gods of pagan Rome? Let us ask, in making our reply, how truth comes to mankind? Is it not always through some human channel? Then the great sayings attributed to Jesus at least came from a human being. Let us go further: it is the common history of mankind that truth comes to the human mind only after a period of preparation. Not conscious preparation, necessarily, but, rather, a preparation forced by events. The truth of a mathematical principle can not come to me unless I am prepared to receive it. And the greatest good comes to men only after they have learned the nothingness of the material ambitions and aims which they have been pursuing. By its own rottenness the world had been made fallow for truth. The awfulness of its own exposure in its rampant, unlicensed revels, had shown as never before the human mind's absolute nothingness—its nothingness as regards real value, permanence, and genuine good—in that first century of our so-called Christian era. And when the nothingness of the carnal mind was made plain, men saw the reality of the truth, as revealed in the Christ, back of it all. The divine message was whispered to a human mentality. And that mentality expanded under the God-influence, until at last it gave to the sin-weary world the Christ-principle of salvation. Let us call that human mentality, for convenience, the man Jesus.

"And now, was he born of a virgin? Impossible! And yet—let us see. It was common enough in his day for virgins to pretend to be with child by the Holy Ghost; and so we do not criticise those who refuse to accept the dogma of the virgin birth. But a little reflection in the light of what we have been discussing throws a wonderful illumination upon the question. If matter and material modes are real, then we must at once relegate the stories of the virgin birth, the miracles, the resurrection, and the ascension to the realm of myth. If the so-called laws of matter are real, irrefragable laws, then we indulgently, pass by these stories as figments of heated imaginations. But, regarding matter as a human, mortal concept, entirely mental, and wholly subject to the impress and influence of mind, and knowing, as we do now, that mental concepts change with changed thought, we are forced to look with more favor upon these questions which for centuries caused men to shed their fellows' blood.

"Mr. Hitt pointed out in our last meeting that mortal beings are interpretations in mortal or human mind of the infinite mind, God, and its ideas. The most perfect human interpretation of God's greatest idea, Man, was Christ Jesus. The real selfhood of every one of us is God's idea of us. It is spiritual, mental. The world calls it the 'soul,' the 'divine essence,' and the 'immortal spark.' The Christ was the real, spiritual selfhood of the man Jesus. So the Christ is the real selfhood of each of us. It is not born of the flesh. It is not conceived and brought forth in conformity with human modes. Now was this great fact externalized in the immaculate conception and birth? It does not grow and decay and pass away in death. It is the 'unique' Son of God which is back of each one of us. But the world has seen it only once in its fullness, and then through the man Jesus.

"Something happened in that first century of the so-called Christian era—something of tremendous significance. What was it? It was the birth of the Christ-idea into the human consciousness. Was the Christ-idea virgin-born? Aye, that it was, for God, infinite Mind, alone was its origin and parent. The speculation which has turned about that wonderful first century event has dealt with the human channel through which the Christ-idea flowed to mankind. But let us see what light our deductions throw even upon that.

"Referring all things to the realm of the mental, where we now know they belong, we see that man never fell, but that Israel's idea of God and man did fall, woefully. We see that the Christ-principle appeared among men; we see that to-day it works marvels; we must admit that throughout the ages before Jesus it had done so; we know now that the great things which Israel is recorded to have done were accomplished by the Christ-principle working through men, and that when their vision became obscured they lost the knowledge of that principle and how to use it. History records the working of great deeds by that same Christ-principle when it was re-born in our first century; and we also can see how the obscuring of the spiritual by the material in the Emperor Constantine's time caused the loss of the Church's power to do great works. We are forced to admit the omnipotence, immanence, and eternality of the Christ-principle, for it is divine mind, God himself. Moses, Elisha, Elijah, the ancient prophets, all had primitive perceptions of truth, and all became channels for the passing of the Christ-principle to mankind in some degree. But none of these men ever illustrated that principle as did the man Jesus. He is the most marvelous manifestation of God that has ever appeared among mankind; so true and exact was the manifestation that he could tell the world that in seeing him they were actually seeing the Father. It is quite true that many of his great sayings were not original with him. Great truths have been voiced, even by so-called pagans, from earliest times. But he demonstrated and made practical the truth in these sayings. And he exposed the nothingness of the human mental concept of matter by healing disease, walking the waves, and in other wonderful ways. It is true that long before his time Greek philosophers had hit upon the theory of the nothingness of matter. Plato had said that only ideas were real. But Jesus—or the one who brought the Christ-message—was the clearest mentality, the cleanest human window-pane, to quote Carmen, that ever existed. Through him the divine mind showed with almost unobscured fullness. God's existence had been discerned and His goodness proved from time to time by prophets and patriarchs, but by no means to the extent that Jesus proved it. There were those before him who had asserted that there was but one reality, and that human consciousness was not the real self. There were even those who believed matter to be created by the force of thought, even as in our own day. But it remained for Jesus to make those ideas intensely practical, even to the overcoming and dissolution of his whole material concept of the universe and man. And it remained for him to show that the origin of evil is in the lie about God. It was his mission to show that the devil was 'a man-killer from the beginning,' because it is the supposition that there is power apart from God. It was his life purpose to show mankind that there is nothing in this lie to cause fear, and that it can be overcome by overcoming the false thought which produces it. By overcoming that thought he showed men the evanescent nature of sickness and death. And sin he showed to be a missing of the mark through lack of understanding of what constitutes real good.

"Turn now again to the Bible, that fascinating record of a whole people's search for God and their changing concept of Him. Note that, wherever in its records evil seems to be made real, it is for the purpose of uncovering and destroying it by the vigorous statements of truth which you will almost invariably find standing near the exposition of error. So evil seemed very real in the first century of our era; but it was uncovered by the coming of Jesus. The exposure of evil revealed the Christ, right at hand."

"But," protested Haynerd, "let's get back to the question of the virgin birth."

"Very well," replied Father Waite. "But let us first consider what human birth is."

"Now there!" exclaimed Haynerd. "Now you are touching my lifelong question. If I am immortal, where was I before I was born?"

"Of which 'I' are you speaking, Ned?" asked Father Waite. "The real 'I' is God's image and likeness, His reflection. It was never born, and never dies. The human 'I' had a beginning. And therefore it will cease to be. The human mind makes its own laws, and calls them laws of nature, or even God's laws. And it obeys them like a slave. Because God is both Father and Mother to His children, His ideas, the human mind has decreed in its counterfeiting process that it is itself both male and female, and that the union of these two is necessary in order to give rise to another human mind. Do you see how it imitates the divine in an apish sort of way? And so elements of each sex-type of the human mind are employed in the formation of another, their offspring. The process is wholly mental, and is one of human belief, quite apart from the usage of the divine Mind, who 'spake and it was done,' mentally unfolding a spiritual creation. The real 'you,' Ned, has always existed as God's idea of Himself. It is spiritual, not material. It will come to light as the material 'you' is put off. The material 'you' did not exist before it was humanly born. It was produced in supposition by the union of the parent human minds, which themselves were reflections of the male and female characteristics of the communal mortal mind. It thus had a definite, supposititious beginning. It will therefore have a definite end."

"And so I'm doomed to annihilation, eh? That's a comforting thought!"

"Your mortal sense of existence, Ned, certainly is doomed to extinction. That which is supposition must go out. Oh, it doubtless will not all be destroyed when you pass through that change which we call death. It may linger until you have passed through many such experiences. And so it behooves you to set about getting rid of it as soon as possible, and thus avoid the unpleasant experience of countless death-throes. You see, Ned, an error in the premise will appear in the conclusion. Now you are starting with the premise that the human 'you' is real. That premise is not based upon fact. Its basis is rank error. All that you reflect of divine mind will endure permanently, but whatever you reflect of the lie regarding that mind will pass away. Human beings know nothing of their origin, nor of their existence. Why? Because there is nothing to know about them; they are entirely supposititious! Paul says, in his letter to the Romans: 'They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God.' The birth of the children of the flesh is wholly a human-mind process. The infant mentality thus produced knows nothing whatsoever of itself. It has no knowledge; is not founded on truth. It will later manifest hereditary beliefs, showing the results of prenatal mesmerism. Then it will receive the general assortment of human thought and opinion—very little of it based on actual truth—which the world calls education. Then it learns to regard itself as an individual, a separate being. And soon it attributes its origin to God. But the prenatal error will appear in the result. The being manifests every gradation of human thought; it grows; it suffers and enjoys materially; it bases its very existence upon matter; it manifests the false activity of human thought in material consciousness; and then it externalizes its beliefs, the consentaneous human beliefs, upon its body and in its environment; and finally, the activity of the false thought which constitutes its consciousness ceases—and the being dies. Yes, its death will be due to sin, to 'hamartio,' missing the mark. It never knew God. And that, Ned, is human life, so-called.

"Death is not in any sense a cessation of life. The being who dies never knew what it was to live. Death is the externalization of human, mortal beliefs, which are not based upon real knowledge, truth. And so, human birth is itself death. Paul said: 'They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit.' In other words, mankind are striving terribly, desperately, to keep alive a sense of material, fleshly existence. But they can't do it. They are foredoomed to failure, despite the discovery of antitoxins. In the book of Job we read: 'The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.' Where, then, is the reality in prenatal mesmerism and the drag of heredity? It is all supposition, all a part of the one lie, the 'man-killer.'

"The change called death comes to all mortals. It is the culmination of the human mind's sense of limitation. It does not usher them into immortal, illimitable bliss. It but leaves them upon another seeming plane of mortal thought, there to drag out another sense of existence, unless they have so learned the lesson which Jesus taught as to enable them to overcome death. It will not be overcome for us. That is our work. We have been shown how to do it. Why, then, do we waste our time in trivial things; in the heaping up of useless money; in the vain strife for sensual pleasures? The mortal will live and die, and live and die, until at last he is beaten into line and forced to demonstrate the Christ-principle. Hadn't we better begin that right here and now? Wishing to die doesn't solve our problems. Suicide only makes us start again, worse off than before. We shall overcome death when we have overcome sin, for the physical manifestation called death is but the externalization in conscious experience of spiritual death—lack of a demonstrable understanding of Life, Truth, Spirit, which is God, unlimited good."

"And the Church, Protestant and Catholic, with their ceremonies, their Masses, and—"

"They have woefully missed the mark, Ned. They are all but spiritually dead. But I see protest rising in our good friends, Doctor Siler and Reverend Moore, so I will hasten on, for we have much ground still to cover.

"Now, knowing that birth is a humanly mental process, is it possible that the man Jesus was 'born of a virgin'? Quite so; but, more, no man ever conceived and born in the way human beings are generated has ever begun to approach Jesus in degree of spirituality. If he had been born in human ways, is it likely that he would ever have developed such intense spirituality? Well, not in a brief thirty-three years or so! And, on the other hand, if he had come into the world in some way other than by being born of a woman, would he have been understandable at all to the human mind? I think not. He would have been wholly in the realm of the mental, far above human perception. If he had been conceived by the union of the two sexes, as is the mortal-mind mode of generation, would he not have been too material to have so quickly developed that spirituality which made him the light of the world at the age of thirty-three? I think it is a fair question. The theory of the virgin birth at least seems to meet the need of a sort of middle course, whereby the man should not be too human to be the channel for the great measure of spirituality with which he was endowed, and yet should be human enough to be appreciable to other human minds.

"Remember, the Jesus who has been reported to us must have regarded matter as unreal, as nothingness. His works plainly show that. And they as plainly show that he came from the Father. His whole life was such as to render the virgin birth almost a necessity, as I see it. How otherwise can we explain him? And from a study of the Gospels I simply can not avoid the conclusion that his knowledge of the allness of God rendered matter such a nonentity to him that he overcame all material laws, overcame the world of matter, and even at the last dematerialized his material body. It's an astonishing thought—and yet, who can show that it is not true? There are some things that reason insists on our accepting, despite the paucity of human records."

"I believe, Mr. Waite," said Doctor Morton, "that the Gospels according to Mark and John make no mention of the virgin birth. Is it not so?"

"Quite true," replied Father Waite. "And I will go further: Biblical research during the past few years seems to have established the conclusion that Mark's Gospel antedates the others, but that prior to it there existed a collection of sayings by Jesus, called the Logia. This collection of sayings seems to have been originally written in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. Now Matthew Arnold tells us that the Gospel narratives passed through at least fifty years of oral tradition before they became fixed in the form in which we now have them. Of course it is quite possible that the story of the virgin birth arose during those fifty years, for we can imagine how the life of Jesus was then discussed! Matthew and Luke alone speak of the virgin birth. Mark's Gospel we believe to have been written by Mark himself. And we believe that Papias, who wrote about the middle of the second century, spoke truly when he said: 'Mark having become (or having been) Peter's interpreter, wrote all that he remembered (or all that Peter related) though he did not (record) in order that which was said or done by Christ.' In other words, even as Renan admits, the Gospel of Mark must be taken as authentically his. Now Matthew's Gospel depends for most of its data upon Mark and the Collection of sayings. Mark's Gospel does not mention the virgin birth; the Collection probably did. Also, Matthew probably did not write the Gospel attributed to him; but he almost certainly did write the Collection of sayings, from which in part the present Gospel according to Matthew was compiled. Luke's Gospel was undoubtedly written by the physician Luke, Paul's companion, and depended largely for its data upon Mark's Gospel and the Collection of Matthew. Yet we can not say that the omission of mention in the Gospels according to Mark and John of the virgin birth renders the story a legend, in view of our own present great knowledge of the constitution of matter, of material laws, and of the fact that the virgin birth is at least rendered credible by the subsequent very extraordinary career of Jesus. Moreover, remember that our New Testament is a small book, and that it is quite probable that a great mass of literature existed on the subject of Jesus and his work, and that it is possible that other of the disciples wrote treatises, perhaps many of them. How many of these touched on the subject of the virgin birth we may never know. Perhaps none; perhaps all. But this conclusion at least we must accept: the validity of the story of the virgin birth does not rest with the four Gospels which have come down to us out of the great mass of literature which probably once existed. Rather is the probability of the immaculate conception a function of our present knowledge of matter, its pseudo-laws, and the great fact that the entire life of Jesus as reported in all the Gospels lends weight to the belief that his birth was not in the ordinary mortal-mind manner."

"I accept that," said Hitt. "I believe you are right."

"And I," said Carmen, "can not see that the origin of the human channel through which the Christ-principle flowed to mankind is of any consequence. The principle has always existed. Jesus said that it existed before Abraham. It alone is the important thing."

"Very true," replied Father Waite. "It has been said that the immaculate conception was the result of Mary's realization that real man is the son of God. This is a beautiful thought. Certainly Jesus did seem to manifest some such metaphysical idea. Perhaps Mary was a woman of tremendous force of character. Perhaps it did come to her that her son should be the Messiah of his race. Jesus certainly did acquire the messianic consciousness—and thereby upheaved the world. But, whatever the human mode of birth, certainly the Christ-principle was brought into the world because of the world's tremendous need. It came as a response. It is only the confusing of the Christ with the man Jesus that is so largely responsible for the weakness of orthodox theology.

"But now, referring again to the Bible, let me say that the Pentateuch is composed of a variety of documents written by various authors. We have no positive proof that Moses had aught to do with its authorship, although parts of it may be based on data which either he originated or sanctioned. The books of Samuel exhibit a plurality of sources. The book of Isaiah was written to record the sayings of at least two persons, both men of marvelous spiritual vision. The Song of Solomon was originally probably a Persian love-poem. The book of Job illustrates the human-mind problem of suffering, and the utter inadequacy of philosophy to heal it. It is a ringing protest against conventional theology.

"But it is with the New Testament that we are particularly concerned, for we believe it to contain the method of salvation from human ills. None of the original documents are extant, of course. And yet, the most searching textual criticism goes to show that the New Testament books as we have them to-day are genuine reproductions of the original documents, with but very little adulteration of erroneous addition by later hands. This means much to us. I have already spoken of the first three Gospels. The book of Acts certainly was written by the author of the third Gospel, Luke. First Peter was composed by the disciple Peter, or was written under his sanction. The Gospel of John and the book of First John were written by one and the same author—but whether by the disciple John or not, I can not say. If this great disciple did not write the Fourth Gospel, at least his influence seems to be felt all through it. The probability is that he knew what was in it, and approved of it, although the actual composition may have been by another, possibly a very learned Greek. To me, the Fourth Gospel is the most masterly work ever composed by man. It stands absolutely alone. The criticism that John, being a Jew, could not have composed it, falls before the greater truth that, having become a Christian, he was no longer a Jew. He was a new creature. For how could he have been other, seeing that he had lived with Jesus?

"And now as to Paul, who contributes about one-third of the New Testament. I have mentioned the letters to the Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans as indisputably his. To these we can add, with scarcely less weight of authenticity, Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, and Philippians. As to the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, there is still doubt. These letters were written to the various Churches chronologically, as I have mentioned them. It has been said that Jesus was way over the heads of his reporters. That was inevitable. Even Paul misunderstood him at times. But—and here is the important fact for us—Paul's letters exhibit a marvelous spiritual growth in the man, and show him at last to be the grand master-metaphysician of the Christian era. Has it ever occurred to you that what the Gospels tell about is almost wholly spiritual? The material is all but neglected by their composers. Indeed, with the questions of time and place, the Gospel narrators seemed to have been but slightly concerned. But with the delineation of the Christ—ah! that was their theme. They were not writing a biography. They were painting a spiritual portrait. In the light of this great truth the apparent lack of harmony in the Gospel narratives loses significance. And how little there is in the Gospels of theology, of institution, of organization! How trifling are creed and doctrine, how little are Catholicism and Protestantism, compared with the stupendous fact that God is, and that His truth, the Christ-principle, is still here to-day and available!

"And so with Paul, he was expounding the 'method and secret' of the Christ. And he first had to work up to it himself. He may have thought, when he wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians, that the man Jesus would come again in the skies, with great pomp and surrounded by the Saints. But in his second letter he states plainly that the Christ will come when the 'old man' is laid off. Not much occasion for misunderstanding there, I think. Indeed, after Jesus so clearly stated that the kingdom of heaven was within men, the marvel is that there could have arisen any confusion whatsoever on the subject of the second coming of the Christ."

"I believe," interposed Reverend Moore, "that the Epistle to the Hebrews contains statements of belief in a judgment after death, in a heaven, a hell, and everlasting life, not wholly consistent with your remarks."

"The Epistle to the Hebrews," returned Father Waite, "was not written by Paul, nor is it quite consistent with his letters. But, read Paul's wonderful eighth chapter of Romans. Read his third chapter of First Corinthians. Read all his letters in the order in which I have mentioned them, which was as they were written, and you can not fail to grasp his marvelous expanding perception of the Christ-principle; the nothingness of the material concept; the impotence of the lie that opposes God, and constitutes all evil; and the necessity of right-thinking if one would work out his salvation from the errors that assail mankind. Paul shows that he passed through a 'belief period,' and that he emerged into the light of demonstrable understanding at last. If men had followed him they never could have fallen into the absurd theological beliefs of foreordination, infant damnation, the resurrection of the flesh, and all the other theological horrors and atrocities of the centuries.

"Yes, the Bible is, as Arnold said, based on propositions which all can verify. The trouble is, mankind have not tried to verify them! They have relegated all that to the life beyond the grave. I fear a sorry disappointment awaits them, for, even as Paul says, they will be after the change called death only what they were before. It is like recovering from a case of sickness, for sickness and death are alike manifestations of mortal thought. We awake from each still human, still with our problems before us. We must break the mesmerism of the belief that the practical application of Jesus' teachings must be relegated to the realm of death, or to the unattainable. We must apply the Christ-principle, and learn to hit the mark, for sin is always weakness, never strength.

"And remember this: having acquired a knowledge of the Christ, we are bidden to acknowledge him—that is, to act-our-knowledge. Many of the world's philosophers have worked out great truths. But they have rested content with that. Many scientists, knowing that matter is unreal, nevertheless conduct themselves as if it constituted the one and only real fact of existence! Is error like truth? Decidedly no! It is truth's exact opposite. Is truth real? Certainly it is! Then its opposite can not be real. The human mentality holds the belief that there is something apart from God, spirit. That belief becomes objectified in the human mentality as matter. And within matter is contained all evil of every sort and name. Evil is not, as the philosophers would have us believe, a lower form of good. It is not 'good in the making.' It is always error, the direct opposite of truth. And if truth is real and eternal, error can not be. See the grave mistake in which Emerson became enmeshed. He said: 'There seems to be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in material forms.' Now follow that out to its logical conclusion. If spirit is synonymous with God, then God manifests Himself in both good and evil, fair and foul, life and death—and which is good, and which bad? All is alike the reflection of God. No, my friends, rather accept Jesus' statement that evil is the lie, of which no man need be afraid, and which all must and shall overcome. And the 'old man,' with all his material concepts of nature and the universe, must and will be laid off, thus revealing the spiritual man, the image and likeness of the one divine Mind.

"Now, just a few words about miracles, the great stumbling block to the acceptance of the Gospels. Are they, together with the entire Gospel narrative, legendary? If so, they must have arisen during those fifty years between Jesus and the recording of the narratives. But this very period is covered by Paul's letters, which record his thought. And even the most relentless of Bible critics admit the genuineness of Paul's authorship of the Epistles to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Thessalonians, and the Galatians. If the Gospel narratives are legends, they grew up and found acceptance in fifty years. A pretty fair miracle in itself, when we take into consideration the inherent incredulity of the human mind! As Dean Farrar says: 'Who would have invented, who would have merely imagined, things so unlike the thoughts of man as these?'

"Now Paul must have been acquainted with men who had seen and known Jesus. And we are forced to admit that Paul was a very strong, sane man. These legends could not have grown up in his day and been accepted by him. And as long as there were men living who had known Jesus—and that must have been as late as the last quarter of the first century—the true events of Jesus' life could hardly have given way to a set of childish legends. As a matter of recorded fact, the various Christian Churches had accepted Jesus within thirty years of the crucifixion. And, too, the words of Paul and the Synoptists were written at a time when the sick were still being healed and even the dead raised by the practical application of Jesus' teachings. Hence, miracles did not astonish them.

"Our own inability to perform the works attributed to Jesus is hardly sufficient ground for denying the belief that he really did them. For what is a miracle? Certainly that the greater portion of the New Testament was written by a few fishermen, a publican, and a tentmaker is one of the most stupendous miracles on record! And the miracle of miracles is Jesus Christ himself! Because Jesus is reported to have healed the sick, raised the dead, and walked the waves, all in opposition to material laws—the so-called laws of nature—the world says the reports are fantastic, that they are fables, and that his reporters were hypnotized, deluded! And yet I tell you that he did not break a single law! He did act in defiance of the so-called testimony of the physical senses, which has always been accepted by mankind as law. We now know what that sense-testimony is—human, mortal thought. He did rise above human consciousness of evil. And because he did so, he instantaneously healed the sick. A miracle expresses, not the beliefs of the human mind, but the law of God, infinite mind, and makes that law conceivable to the human mentality. God's laws are never set aside, for by very definition a law is immutable, else it ceases to be law. But when the human mind grows out of itself sufficiently to perceive those laws and to express them to its fellow-minds, the result is called a miracle. Moreover, the ability to perform miracles is but a function of spirituality. A miracle is a sign of one's having advanced to such a degree of spirituality as to enable him to rise above material consciousness and its limitations, which are called laws. The consciousness that knows no evil will perform miracles. The early Christians did great works. These works were the 'signs following,' and attested their knowledge of the allness of God. A miracle is simply a proof of God. Carmen—"

"Lewis!" protested the girl.

"Let me say it, please. Carmen knew that no power opposed to God could hold Sidney. And the 'sign' followed. Yes, she performed a miracle. She broke a human-mind, so-called law, a limitation. She proved God's law of harmony and holiness—wholeness—to be omnipresent and omnipotent. And, mark me, friends, every one of us must learn to do likewise! Not only must the Church obey Jesus and do the works which he did, but every individual will have to do them himself."

"His works were done for a special reason, Mr. Waite," interposed Reverend Moore. "They were to testify to his messiahship. They are not required of us."

Father Waite silently regarded the minister for some moments. Then he went on gently:

"It seems incredible that the plain teachings of Jesus could have been so warped and twisted as they have been by orthodox theology. Christianity is so simple! Why should even the preachers themselves condemn the one who seeks to obey Christ? Mr. Moore, the real man is God's highest idea of Himself. The human mind makes mental concepts of God's man. And Jesus was the grandest concept of God's idea of Himself that the human mind has ever constructed by means of its interpretations. He was the image of truth. One of his grandest characteristics was his implicit obedience to his vision of the Father. And he demanded just as implicit obedience from us. But he bade us, again and again, heal the sick and raise the dead!"

"We heal the sick! We have our physicians!"

"Yes? And Asa had his physicians to whom he turned—with the result that he 'slept with his fathers.' There is no more ironical statement in the whole Bible than that. We turn to our physicians because we have no faith in God. Materia medica physicians do not heal the sick. They sometimes succeed in causing the human mind temporarily to substitute a belief of health for a belief of disease that is all. But Jesus and the early Christians healed by true prayer—the prayer of affirmation, the prayer that denied reality to evil, and affirmed the omnipotence of God. And that was done through an understanding of God as immutable law, or principle."

"Would you pray to a principle?" demanded Reverend Moore, with a note of contempt in his voice. "I prefer my own concept of God, as one who hears our petitions, and pities us, and not as a lifeless principle!"

"God is principle, Mr. Moore," replied Father Waite, "in that He is 'that by which all is.' And in order to be such He must be, as the Bible says, 'the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.' He must be immovable, regardless of human pleading and petition. And so true prayer, the prayer that draws an answer, is not an objective appeal to Him, but is an intelligent application of the Christ-principle to all our problems and needs. Such prayer will remove mountains in proportion to the understanding and motive back of it. And such prayer does not seek to inform the Almighty of the state of affairs here among men, informing Him that evil is real and rampant, and begging that He will stoop down and remove it. It is the prayer that manifests man's oneness with the infinite mind as its image, reflecting a knowledge of the allness of good and the consequent unreality and powerlessness of evil, the lie about it. It was healing by such prayer, Mr. Moore, that the Episcopal Synod rejected only recently. Instead of doing the healing themselves by means of the principle given them, they still plead with God, the immovable and immutable, to do it for them, provided the very uncertain science of materia medica fails.

"The true method of prayer was employed by the early Christians, until the splendid vision of the Christ became obscured and finally lost to the Church by its bargaining with Constantine for a mess of pottage, namely, temporal power. Then began to rise that great worldly institution, the so-called Holy Church. In the first half of the sixth century Justinian closed the schools of philosophy at Athens. For a while Judaizing Christianity continued its conflict with Gnosticism. And then both merged themselves into the Catholic form of faith, which issued forth from Rome, with Christian tradition grafted upon paganism. Theology and ritualism divided the gospel of healing the sick and saving the sinner into two radically different systems, neither of which is Christian, and neither of which can either heal or save. Since then, lip-service and ceremonial have taken the place of healing the sick and raising the dead. The world again slipped back steadily from the spiritual to the material, and to-day ethics constitutes our religion, and stupid drugs hold sway where once sat enthroned the healing Christ-principle."

"I would remind you, Mr. Waite, that I have Catholic leanings myself," said Doctor Siler. "I don't like to hear either my religion or my profession abused."

"My criticism, Doctor," replied Father Waite, "is but an exposure of the entrenched beliefs and modes of the human mind."

"But, sir, the Church is a great social force, and a present necessity."

"The worth of a belief as a social force, Doctor, must be ascertained from its fruits. The Roman Church has been an age-long instigator of wars, disorders, and atrocious persecutions throughout the world. Its assumption that its creed is the only religious truth is an insult to the world's expanding intelligence. Its arrogant claim to speak with the authority of God is one of the anomalies of this century of enlightenment. Its mesmeric influence upon the poor and ignorant is a continuous tragedy."

"The poor and ignorant! Are you unmindful of the Church's schools and hospitals?"

"No, Doctor. Nor am I ignorant of the fact that the success of Christianity is not measured by hospitals. Rather, their continuance attests the lamentable failure of its orthodox misinterpretation. I have been a priest, Doctor. I do not want to see this splendid country forced into the iron shackles of priestcraft."

"It can not happen here!" cried Haynerd, pounding the table with his fist. "The time has passed when a man can say, 'My church, be she right or wrong, but my church!' and insist that it shall be forced upon us, whether we like it or not!"

"Doctor," continued Father Waite, "the Romanist has always missed the mark. He prayed to a God of love to give him power to exterminate heretics—those who differed with him in belief. But he prayed with iniquity, hatred, murder in his heart; and God, who is too pure to know evil, heard him not. Prayer is the affirmation of omnipotent good. Is it good to murder one's fellow-men? The Psalmist wrote: 'If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.' That is why the Church's prayers and curses have failed, and why she herself is a failing institution to-day. I say this in pity, not in malice."

"I, sir, believe in a religion that can hate," returned the doctor. "Christianity is as much a religion of hate as of love—hatred of all that is evil and opposed to the revealed Word of God."

"And thereby your religion will fail, and has failed, for God is love. You, by your hatred of what you consider evil, make evil real. Indeed, the Church has always emphasized evil as a great and living reality. How could it ever hope to overcome it then? Your Church, Doctor, has little of the meekness of the Christ, and so, little of his strength. It has little of his spirituality. Its numbers and great material wealth do not constitute power. Its assumptions remind me of the ancient Jews, who declared that God spent much of His time reading their Talmud. You will have to lay aside, Doctor, all of it, and turn to the simple, demonstrable teachings of Jesus. When you have learned to do the works he did, then will you have justified yourself and your faith."

While Father Waite was speaking, Carmen had quietly risen and taken her place at the piano. When he concluded, she began to play and sing softly. As the sweet melody flowed out through the room the little group became silent and thoughtful. Again it was that same weird lament which the girl had sung long before in the Elwin school to voice the emotions which surged up in her during her loneliness in the great city. In it her auditors heard again that night the echoing sighs of the passive Indians, enslaved by the Christian Spaniards. Hitt's head sank upon his breast as he listened. Haynerd tried to speak, but choked. The Beaubien buried her face in her hands and wept softly. The lines about Doctor Siler's mouth relaxed, and his lips trembled. He rose quietly and went around to where Father Waite sat.

"My friend—" He bent and took Father Waite's hand. "We are—friends?"

Father Waite sprang to his feet and threw an arm about the doctor. "We are more than that, Doctor," he whispered. "We are brothers. And in reality we are both, here and now, beloved children of God."

Doctor Siler bowed. Then he nodded to the others, and took his departure. As he passed the piano Carmen rose and seized his hand.

"You know, Doctor, that we love you, don't you?"

"Your love," he murmured, as he bent over her hand, "is from the Christ. Nay, it is the Christ himself among us!"

He would have said more, but his voice broke. Then he went out.

When Hitt, Reverend Moore, and Doctor Morton had left, Haynerd, who had remained for a moment to speak to Father Waite, turned to the Beaubien.

"Madam," he said, "Mr. Hitt is a remarkable man. He is conducting a remarkable newspaper. But—" He stopped and looked at Carmen. "Well, if I mistake not, his quietness this evening indicated his belief that this might be our last meeting for some time."

"Why, Ned?"

Haynerd shook his head dubiously. Then, abruptly:

"Telephone me, Carmen, if anything of interest comes up to-morrow in Avon."

The Beaubien turned quickly to the girl. "You are going to Avon to-morrow? Don't! Please don't!" There was a look of fear in her eyes.

Carmen drew the woman to her, then stooped and kissed her cheek. "Mother dearest, I go to Avon with my God."

The Beaubien bowed her head. She knew it was so.

And the girl went early the next morning.



CHAPTER 11

The town of Avon, two hours from New York, lay along Avon creek, from which its first manufacturing industries derived their motive power. Years before, when it was little more than a barren stretch of sand, some enterprising soul had built a cotton mill there, with only a few primitive looms. As the years passed, and kindly Congresses reared about the industry a high protective wall, the business prospered marvelously. But shortly after the death of the senior Ames the company became involved, through mismanagement, with the result that, to protect itself, the house of Ames and Company, the largest creditor, was obliged to take over its mills.

At first, J. Wilton Ames was disposed to sell the assets of the defunct company, despite the loss to his bank. But then, after a visit of inspection, and hours of meditation on certain ideas which had occurred to him, he decided to keep the property. The banging of the looms, the whirr of the pickers, the sharp little shrieks of the spinning machines, fascinated him, as he stood before them. They seemed to typify the ceaseless throbbing of his own great brain. They seemed, too, to afford another outlet for that mighty flood of materialistic thought and energy which flowed incessantly through it.

And so he set about reorganizing the business. He studied the process of cloth manufacture. He studied the growth and handling of cotton. He familiarized himself with every detail of the cotton market. He was already well versed in the intricacies of the tariff. And soon the idle machinery was roaring again. Soon the capacity of the mills was doubled. And soon, very soon, the great Ames mills at Avon had become a corporate part of our stupendous mechanical development of the century just closed.

When Carmen stepped from the train that morning she stood for a moment looking uncertainly about her. Everywhere on one side as far as she could see were low, ramshackle frame houses; a few brick store buildings stood far up the main street; and over at her right the enormous brick mills loomed high above the frozen stream. The dull roar of the machinery drifted through the cold air to her ears. Up the track, along which she had just come, some ragged, illy clad children were picking up bits of coal. The sight seemed to fix her decision. She went directly to them, and asked their names.

"Anton Spivak," answered one of the children dully, when she laid a hand on his shoulder.

"And where do you live?"

"Over dere," pointing off to the jungle of decrepit sheds. "Me an' him, we worked in de mills; but dere ain't no work fer us now. Dey's on half time."

"Take me to your home," she said firmly.

The boy looked his astonishment. "Dere ain't nobody to home," he replied. "De ol' man an' woman works in de mills daytimes."

"Come-a home wi' me," spoke up the boy's companion, a bright-faced little urchin of some ten years who had given his name as Tony Tolesi. "We lives in de tenements."

Carmen looked at him for a moment. "Come," she said.

Up the main street of the town they went for a short distance, then turned and wended their course, through narrow streets and byways, down toward the mills. In a few minutes they were in the district where stood the great frame structures built by the Ames company to house its hands. Block after block of these they passed, massive, horrible, decrepit things, and at last stopped at a grease-stained, broken door, which the little fellow pushed open. The hall beyond was dark and cold. Carmen followed shivering, close after the boy, while he trotted along, proud of the responsibility of conducting a visitor to his home. At the far end of the hall the lad plunged into a narrow staircase, so narrow that a stout man could not have mounted it. Up four of these broken flights Carmen toiled after him, and then down a long, desolate corridor, which sent a chill into the very marrow of her bones.

"Dis is where we lives, Missy," announced the little fellow. "Miss-a Marcus, she live in dere," pointing to the door directly opposite. "She ain't got only one arm."

He pushed open the door before which they had halted. A rush of foul air and odors of cooking swept out. They enveloped the girl and seemed to hurl her back. A black-haired woman, holding a crying baby in her arms, rose hastily from an unmade bed at one side of the room. Two little girls, six or eight years of age, and a boy still younger, ranged about their mother and stared in wide-eyed wonder.

"Dis-a lady, she come to visit," announced Carmen's guide abruptly, pointing a dirty finger at her.

The woman's face darkened, and she spoke harshly in a foreign tongue to the little fellow.

"She say," the boy interpreted, as a crestfallen look spread over his face, "she say she don't spik Inglese."

"But I speak your language," said the girl, going quickly to her and extending a hand. Then, in that soft tongue which is music celestial to these Neapolitan strangers upon our inhospitable shores, she added, "I want to know you; I want to talk to you."

She glanced quickly about the room. A littered, greasy cook stove stood in one corner. Close to it at either end were wooden couches, upon which were strewn a few tattered spreads and blankets, stained and grimy. A broken table, a decrepit chest of drawers, and a few rickety chairs completed the complement of furniture. The walls were unadorned, except for a stained chromo of the Virgin, and the plaster had fallen away in many places. There was only one window in the room. Several of its panes were broken and stuffed with rags and papers.

At the sound of her own language the woman's expression changed. A light came into her dull eyes, and she awkwardly took the proffered hand.

"You are—from Italy?" she said in her native tongue. Then, sweeping the girl's warm attire with a quick glance, "You are rich! Why do you come here?"

"Your little boy brought me. And I am glad he did. No, I am not from Italy. I am rich, yes, but not in money."

The woman turned to her children and sent the little brood scattering. At another sharp command little Tony set out a soiled, broken chair for Carmen. But before the girl could take it the woman's voice again rose sharply.

"Wait!" she commanded, turning fiercely upon Carmen. "You are—what do you say? slumming. You come with your gay party to look us over and go away laughing! No! You can not stay!"

Carmen did not smile. But reaching out, she gently lifted the heavy baby from the woman's arms and sat down with it. For a moment she patted its cheeks and bent tenderly over it. Then she looked up at the bewildered mother.

"I have come here," she said softly, "because I love you."

The woman's lips parted in astonishment. She turned dully and sat down on one of the begrimed beds. Her little ones gathered about her, their soiled fingers in their mouths, or clutching their tattered gowns, as they gazed at the beautiful creature who had suddenly come into their midst.

Then the woman found her voice again. "Eh! You are from the mission? You come to talk of heaven? But I am busy."

"I am not from the mission," replied the girl gently. "I have come to talk, not of heaven, but of earth, and of you, and of Tony," smiling down into the eager face of the little boy as he stood before her.

"You can't have Tony!" cried the mother, starting up. "You can't take any of my children! The judge took Pietro Corrello's boy last week—but you can't have mine! Go away from here!"

"I don't want your children," said Carmen, smiling up at the frightened, suspicious mother. "I want you. I want you to help me to help all of these people here who need us. The mills are running only half time, aren't they? The people do not have enough to eat. But we, you and I, are going to make things better for them, for everybody here, aren't we?

"But first," she went on hastily, to further allay the poor woman's fears and to check additional protest, "suppose we plan our dinner. Let's see, Tony, what would you like?"

The boy's lips instantly parted. His eyes began to glisten. He glanced inquiringly at his mother; but no sign came from her. Then he could no longer contain himself:

"Spaghetti!" he blurted. "Soup! Buns!"

Carmen drew out her purse and turned to the woman. "Come with me," she said. "While we are gone, Tony and the children will wash the dishes and set the table. Come."

For a moment the woman looked uncomprehendingly at the girl, then at her children, and then about the miserable room in which they were huddled. Amazement and confusion sat upon her heavy features. Then these gave way to another dark look of suspicion. She opened her mouth—

But before she could voice her resentment, Carmen rose and threw an arm about her. Then the girl quickly drew the startled woman to her and kissed her on the cheek. "Come," she whispered, "get your shawl. We'll be back soon."

God's universal language is the language of love. All nations, all tribes understand it. The flood-gates, long barred, swiftly opened, and the tired, miserable woman sank sobbing upon the bed. She could not comprehend what it was that had come so unannounced into her dreary existence that cold winter morning. People were not wont to treat her so. Her life had been an endless, meaningless struggle against misery, want, grinding oppression. People did not put their arms around her and kiss her thus. They scoffed at her, they abused her, they fought with her! She hated them, and the world in which she lived!

"I know, I know," whispered Carmen, as she drew the sobbing woman's head upon her shoulder. "But things will be better now. Love has found you."

The woman suddenly raised up. "You—you are—from heaven? An angel?" She drew back, and a frightened, superstitious look came into her face.

"Yes," said Carmen softly, taking the cue, "I am an angel, right from heaven. Now you are no longer afraid of me, are you? Come."

The woman rose mechanically and took up her thin shawl. Carmen gave a few directions to the gaping children. And as she went out into the bleak hall with the woman she heard one of them whisper in tones of awe:

"Tony, she said she—she was—an angel! Quick! Get down on your knees and cross yourself!"

* * * * *

Upward to the blue vault of heaven, like the streaming mists that rise through the tropic moonlight from the hot llanos, goes the ceaseless cry of humanity. Oh, if the god of the preachers were real, his heart must have long since broken! Upward it streams, this soul-piercing cry; up from the sodden, dull-brained toiler at the crashing loom; up from the wretched outcast woman, selling herself to low passions to escape the slavery of human exploitation; up from the muttering, ill-fed wreck, whose life has been cashed into dividends, whose dry, worthless hulk now totters to the scrap heap; up from the white-haired, flat-chested mother, whose stunted babes lie under little mounds with rude, wooden crosses in the dreary textile burial grounds; up from the weak, the wicked, the ignorant, the hopeless martyrs of the satanic social system that makes possible the activities of such human vultures as the colossus whose great mills now hurled their defiant roar at this girl, this girl whose life-motif was love.

Close about her, at the wretched little table, sat the wondering group of children, greedily gorging themselves on the only full meal that they could remember. And with them sat the still bewildered mother, straining her dark eyes at the girl, and striving to see in her a human being, a woman like herself. At her right sat the widow Marcus, who lived just across the hall. Her husband had been crushed to death in one of the pickers two years before. The company had paid her a hundred dollars, but had kept back five for alleged legal fees. She herself had lost an arm in one of these same pickers, long ago, because the great owner of the mills would not equip his plant with safety devices.

"Come, Tony!" said the mother at length, as a sense of the reality of life suddenly returned to her. "The lunch for your father!"

Tony hurriedly swept the contents of his plate into his mouth, and went for the battered dinner pail.

"My man goes to work at six-thirty in the morning," she explained to Carmen, when the little fellow had started to the mills with the pail unwontedly full. "And he does not leave until five-thirty. He was a weaver, and he earned sometimes ten dollars a week. But he didn't last. He wore out. And so he had to take a job as carder. He earns about eight dollars a week now. But sometimes only six or seven."

"But you can't live on that, with your children!" exclaimed Carmen.

"Yes, we could," replied the woman, "if the work was steady. But it isn't. You see, if I could work steady, and the children too, we could live. I am a good spinner. And I am not nearly so worn out as he is. I have several years left in me yet."

The widow Marcus, who spoke the language from an association with Italian immigrants since childhood, added her comments from time to time. She was a gray-haired, kindly soul, bearing no enmity toward the man to whom she had yielded her husband's life and her own.

"A man's no good in the mills after he's fifty," she said. "You see, Miss, it's all piece-work, and a man has to be most terribly spry and active. The strain is something awful, day after day, in the noise and bad air, and having to keep your eyes fixed on your work for ten hours at a stretch; and he wears out fast. Then he has to take a job where he can't make so much. And when he's about fifty he's no good for the mills any more."

"And then what?" asked Carmen.

"Well, if he hasn't any children, he goes to the poor-house. But, if he has, then they take care of him."

"Then mill workers must have large families?"

"Yes, they've got to, Miss. The little ones must work in the mills, too. These mills here take them on when they are only twelve, or even younger. Tony has worked there, and he is only ten. It's against the law; but Mr. Ames gets around the law some way."

"Tell me, Mrs. Marcus, how do you live?" the girl asked.

"I? Oh, I manage. The company paid me some money two years ago, and I haven't spent all of it yet. Besides, I work round a bit. I'm pretty spry with one arm."

"But—you do not pay rent for your home?"

"Oh, yes. I have only one room. It's small. There's no window in it. It's an inside room."

"And you pay rent—to Mr. Ames—the man whose machines killed your husband and took off your arm—you still pay rent to him, for one little room?"

"Yes, Miss. He owns these tenements. Why, his company gave me almost a hundred dollars, you know! I was lucky, for when Lizzie Sidel's man lost his hand in the cog wheels he went to law to sue the company, and three years afterward the case was thrown out of court and he had to pay the costs himself. But he was a picker-boss, and got nine dollars a week."

A little hand stole up along Carmen's arm. She looked down into the wondering face of the child. "I—I just wanted to see, Signorina, if you were real."

"I have been wondering that myself, dear," replied the girl, as her thought dwelt upon what she had been hearing.

"I must go now, Miss," said the widow Marcus, rising. "I promised to drop in and look after Katie Hoolan's children this afternoon. She's up at the mills."

"Then I will go with you," Carmen announced. "But I will come back here," she added, as some little hands seized hers. "If not to-day, then soon—perhaps to-morrow."

She crossed the cold hall with Mrs. Marcus, and entered the doorway which led to the little inner room where dwelt the widow. There were a dozen such rooms in the building, the latter informed her. This one in particular had been shunned for many years, for it had a bad reputation as a breeder of tuberculosis. But the rent was low, and so the widow had taken it after her man was killed. It contained a broken stove, a dirty bed, and a couple of unsteady chairs. The odor was fetid. The walls were damp, and the paper which had once covered them was molding and rotting off.

"It won't stay on," the widow explained, as she saw the girl looking at it. "The walls are wet all the time. Comes up from the cellar. The creek overflows and runs into the basement. They call this the 'death-room.'"

Death! Carmen shuddered when she looked about this fearful human habitation. Yet, "The only death to be feared," said Paracelsus, "is unconsciousness of God." Was this impoverished woman, then, any less truly alive than the rich owner of the mills which had robbed her of the means of existence? And can a civilization be alive to the Christ when it breeds these antipodal types?

"And yet, who permits them?" Haynerd had once exclaimed. "Ames's methods are the epitome of hell! But he is ours, and the worthy offspring of our ghastly, inhuman social system. We alone are to blame that he debauches courts, that he blinds executives, and that he buys legislatures! We let him make the laws, and fatten upon the prey he takes within their limits. Aye, he is the crafty, vicious, gold-imbruted manifestation of a whole nation's greed!" Nay, more, he is the externalization of a people's ignorance of God.

Carmen's throat filled as she watched the old woman bustling about the wretched room and making a feeble attempt at order.

"You see," the widow went on, happy in the possession of an auditor, "there is no use making apologies for the looks of my room; I couldn't make it look much better if I tried. There's no running water. We have to get water from the hydrant down back of the house. It is pumped there from the creek, and it's a long climb up these stairs when you've got only one arm to hold the bucket. And I have to bring my coal up, too. The coal dealer charges extra for bringing it up so far."

Carmen sat down on an empty box and watched her. The woman's lot seemed to have touched the depths of human wretchedness, and yet there burned within her soul a something that the oppression of human avarice could not extinguish.

"It's the children, Miss, that I think about," she continued. "It's not so bad as when I was a little one and worked in the cloth mills in England. I was only six when I went into the mills there. I worked from seven in the morning until after six at night. And the air was so bad and we got so tired that we children used to fall asleep, and the boss used to carry a stick to whip us to keep us awake. My parents died when I was only eight. They worked in the Hollow-ware works, and died of lead poisoning. People only last four or five years at that work."

Carmen rose. "How many children are employed in these mills here?" she asked.

"I can't say, Miss. But hundreds of them."

"I want to see them," said the girl, and there was a hitch in her voice as she spoke.

"You can go down and watch them come out about six this evening. It's a sight to a stranger. But now I must hurry to look after the Hoolan babes."

When she again reached the street Carmen turned and looked up at the hideous structure from which she had emerged; then she drew a long breath. The foul air of the "death-room" seemed to fill her lungs as with leaden weights. The dim light that lay over the wretched hovel hung like a veil before her eyes.

"Katie lives a block down the street," said the widow, pointing in the direction. "She was burned out last winter. These tenements don't have fire-escapes, and the one she lived in burned to the ground in an hour. She lived on the second floor, and got out. But—six were burned to death."

It seemed to Carmen as she listened to the woman that the carnal mind's chamber of horrors was externalized there in the little town of Avon, existing with the dull consent of a people too ignorant, too imbruted, too mesmerized by the false values of life to rise and destroy it.

All that cold winter afternoon the girl went from door to door. There was no thought of fear when she met dull welcomes, scowls, and menacing glances. In humble homes and wretched hovels; to Magyar, Pole, Italian alike; to French Canadian, Irish and Portuguese; and to the angry, the defiant, the sodden, the crushed, she unfolded her simple banner of love, the boundless love that discriminates not, the love that sees not things, but the thoughts and intents of the heart that lie behind them. And dark looks faded, and tears came; withered hearts opened, and lifeless souls stirred anew. She knew their languages; and that knowledge unlocked their mental portals to her. She knew their thoughts, and the blight under which they molded; and that knowledge fell like the sun's bright rays upon them. She knew God, their God and hers; and that knowledge began, even on that dull, gray afternoon, to cut into the chains of human rapacity which enslaved them.

At six that evening she stood at the tall iron gate of the mill yard. Little Tony was at her side, clutching her hand. A single electric lamp across the street threw a flickering, yellow light upon the snow. The great, roaring mills were ablaze with thousands of glittering eyes. Suddenly their monster sirens shrieked, a blood-curdling yell. Then their huge mouths opened, and a human flood belched forth.

Carmen gazed with riveted sight. They were not the image and likeness of God, these creatures, despite the doctrinal platitudes of the Reverend Darius Borwell and the placid Doctor Jurges. They were not alive, these stooping, shuffling things, despite the fact that the religiously contented Patterson Moore would argue that God had breathed the spirit of life into the thing of dust which He created. And these children, drifting past in a great, surging throng! Fathers and mothers of a generation to come! Carmen knew that many of them, despite their worn looks, were scarcely more than ten years old. These were the flesh and blood upon which Ames, the jungle-beast, waxed gross! Upon their thin life-currents floated the magnificent Cossack!

She turned away in silence. Yes, she was right, evil can not be really known. There is no principle by which to explain the hideous things of the human mind. And then she wondered what the Reverend Darius Borwell did to earn that comfortable salary of ten thousand a year in his rich New York church.

"It's quite a sight, ain't it, Miss?" said a voice close by.

Carmen turned and confronted a priest. He was a man of medium height, young, and of Irish descent.

"It's a great sight," he continued, with a touch of brogue in his tones. "Hey, Fagin!" he cried, catching a passing workman's arm. "Where's Ross?"

"He ain't worked to-day, Father," replied the man, stopping and touching his cap.

The young priest uttered an exclamation of displeasure. Then, as the workman started away:

"You'll be at the Hall to-night, Fagin? And bring everybody you can."

The man addressed nodded and gave an affirmative grunt, then passed on into the darkness.

"It's trying to reach a few of 'em I am," remarked the priest. "But it's slow work. When a man's stomach's empty he hasn't much respect for morality. And I can't feed the lot of 'em!"

Carmen gazed into the kindly blue eyes of the priest and wondered. "How are you reaching them?" she asked. "I am very much interested."

The priest returned the girl's searching look. "In settlement work?" he queried.

"No—but I am interested in my fellow-beings."

"Ah, then you'll understand. I've some rooms, some on Main street, which I call the Hall, and some down in the—well, the bad district, which I call the Mission. They're reading rooms, places for men to meet, and get acquainted, and rest, and talk. The Hall's for the fellows who work, like this Fagin. The Mission's for the down-and-outs."

"But—are your rooms only for—for men of your faith?"

"Nary a bit!" exclaimed the priest with a little laugh. "Race or religion don't figure. It's to give help to every man that needs it."

"And you are giving your life to help these people?" the girl went on. "I want to see your Hall and Mission. Take me to them," she abruptly demanded.

The priest gave a start of surprise. He looked down at little Tony, and then up at Carmen again.

"Come," she said. "We will leave the boy at his door, and then go to your Mission and Hall. Now tell me, you are a Roman Catholic priest?"

"Yes," he said mechanically, following her as she started away.

"How did you happen to get into this sort of work?" she pursued.

"Oh, I've been at it these ten years!" he returned, now recovered from his surprise, and pleased to talk about his work. "I'd had some experience in New York in the Bowery district. I came to the conclusion that there were mighty few down-and-outs who couldn't be set upon their pins again, given half a chance by any one sufficiently interested. There's the point. You see, Miss, I believe in my fellow-men. The results have justified my labors. Oh, it's only temporary, I know. It ain't going to change the whole social system. It's a makeshift. But it helps a bit—and I like it.

"But," he continued more seriously, "there's going to be trouble here. A strike is coming. And it's going to be a bad one. I wish I could convince Mr. Ames."

"Have you tried?" she asked.

"I've written him several times of late. It doesn't do any good. His secretary writes back that Mr. Ames is doing all he can. But it's not much I see he's doing, except to go on sucking the blood from these poor devils down here!"

They soon reached the tenement where Tony lived, and Carmen asked the priest to go up with her. He raised a hand and smiled.

"No," he said, "the good woman doesn't like priests. And my labors don't reach the women anyway, except through the men. They constitute my field. Some one else must work among the women. I'll wait for you here."

It was only by making many promises that Carmen could at last get away from the little group on the fourth floor. But she slipped a bill into Tony's hands as she went out, and then hurriedly crossed the hall and opened the unlocked door of the widow Marcus's room. The place was empty. Carmen pinned a five-dollar bill upon the pillow and hastened out.