keep their children ignorant of the ideas of sex. Religion has got
so horribly mixed up with other things, with respectability, social
order, conventions, doctrines, metaphysics, ceremony, music--it has
become so specialised in the hands of priests who have a great
institution to support, that dust is thrown in people's eyes--and
just as they begin to think they perceive the secret, they are
surrounded by tiresome dogmatists saying, 'It is this and that--it
is this doctrine, that tradition.' Well, that sort of religion IS a
very special accomplishment--ecclesiastical religion. I don't deny
that it has artistic qualities, but it is a poor narrow product;
and then the technically religious make such a fuss if they see the
shoal of fish escaping the net, and beat the water so vehemently
that the fish think it safer to stay where they are, and so you get
sardines in tins!" said Mrs. Graves with a smile--"by which I mean
the churches."

"Yes," said Howard, "that is perfectly true! Christianity was at
first the most new, radical, original, anarchical force in the
world--it was the purest individualism; it was meant to over-ride
all human combinations by simply disregarding them; it was not a
social reform, and still less a political reform; it was a new
spirit, and it was meant to create a new kind of fellowship, the
mere existence of which would do away with the need for
organisation; it broke meekly, like water, through all human
partitions, and I suppose it has been tamed."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "it is not now the world against religion.
It is organised religion against real religion, because religion is
above and apart from all institutions. Christ said, 'When they
persecute you in one city, flee into another'; and the result of