Part 24 (2/2)

”I find it hard to understand,” Mrs. Morison observed, ”how any churchman can be so blind to the importance of conciliating public thought and the general feeling as for a moment to think of any other candidate than Mr. Strathmore. He is so completely in sympathy with the broadening tendencies of the time.”

”But that means ultimately the destruction of creeds,” Maurice objected, answering rather the implication than her words.

”I think that perhaps the highest courage men are called upon to show,”

she answered, ”is that of giving up a theory which has served its use.

The race forces us to do it sooner or later, but the men who are really great are those who are able to say frankly that their creeds have done their work, and that the new day must have new ones. You might almost say that the extent to which a man prefers truth to himself is to be judged by his willingness to give up a dogma that is outworn.”

”But you leave no stability to truth.”

”The truth is stable without effort or will of mine,” she returned, smiling; ”but surely you would have human appreciation of it advance.”

He felt that there must be an answer to this, but he was not able to see just what it was, and he s.h.i.+fted the question.

”But Mr. Strathmore,” he said hesitatingly, ”is married.”

”Yes,” she a.s.sented. ”'The husband of one wife.'”

”If you begin to quote Scripture against me,” Maurice retorted, laughing in spite of himself, ”I might easily reply to St. Paul by St.

Paul. But letting that pa.s.s, it is certainly true that the church has always held that marriage absorbs a man in earthly things so that he cannot give the best of his thoughts to his work.”

”When the church sets itself against marriage,” Mrs. Morison responded quietly, ”it seems to me to be setting up to know more than the Creator of the race.”

Maurice colored, although he might not have been able to tell whether his strongest feeling was horror at this bold language or joy at the emphasis with which she spoke.

”Perhaps I should beg your pardon for saying so frankly what I think,”

Mrs. Morison continued. ”It isn't the way in which one generally talks to a clergyman; but the subject is one for which I haven't much patience, and of course I couldn't help seeing that you are in doubt yourself.”

Maurice started.

”What do you mean?” he stammered. ”I--I in doubt?”

”I hadn't any intention of forcing your confidence,” returned she. ”I am an old woman, and sometimes I find that I don't make allowance enough for the slowness of you young people in arriving at a knowledge of self.”

He cast down his eyes.

”Until this moment,” he said, ”I have never acknowledged to myself that I was in doubt. I see what you mean, and it shows that I have been playing with fire.”

She looked at him questioningly, then turned the subject.

”Which is perhaps a hint that our fire is going down. Sit still, please. Every woman likes to tend her own fire.”

”I should have learned that by this time,” was his answer. ”I lost an inheritance once by insisting upon fixing a fire.”

”That sounds interesting. Is it proper to ask for the story?”

”Oh, there isn't much of a story. I had a great-aunt who was worth a lot of money, and who was eccentric. She was in a way fond of me when I was a child, and used to have me at the house a good deal. I confess I didn't like it much. Things went by rule, and the rules were often pretty queer. One of them was that n.o.body should presume to touch the fire if she was in the room. I liked to play with the fire as well as she did, and when I was a boy just in my teens I used to do it. After she'd corrected me half a dozen times I got into my foolish pate that it was my duty to cure her of her whim. So I set to poking the fire ostentatiously until she lost her temper and ordered me out of the house. Then she burned up the will in my favor and made a new one, giving all her money to the church.”

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