"Just my meaning," replied Mr. Allison.

A pause of some moments followed.

"Then it comes to this," said Mr. Markland, "that only through a
religious life can a man hope to arrive at truth."

"Only through a life in just order," was the reply.

"What is a life in just order?"

"A life in harmony with the end of our creation."

"Ah! what a volume of meaning, hidden as well as apparent, does your
answer involve! How sadly out of order is the world! how little in
harmony with itself! To this every man's history is a living
attestation."

"If in the individual man we find perverted order, it cannot, of
course, be different with the aggregated man."

"No."

"The out of order means, simply, an action or force in the moral and
mental machinery of the world, in a direction opposite to the right
movement."

"Yes; that is clear."