make theories about it which the churches still proclaim as the catholic
and final truth. You forbid us to use our reason. You declare, in order
to become Christians, that we have to accept authoritative statements.
Oh, can't you see that an authoritative statement is just what an
ethical person doesn't want? Belief--faith doesn't consist in the mere
acceptance of a statement, but in something much higher--if we can
achieve it. Acceptance of authority is not faith, it is mere credulity,
it is to shirk the real issue. We must believe, if we believe at all,
without authority. If we knew, there would be no virtue in striving.
If I choose a God," she added, after a pause, "I cannot take a consensus
of opinion about him,--he must be my God."

Hodder did not speak immediately. Strange as it may seem, he had
never heard the argument, and the strength of it, reenforced by the
extraordinary vitality and earnestness of the woman who had uttered it,
had a momentary stunning effect. He sat contemplating her as she lay
back among the cushions, and suddenly he seemed to see in her the
rebellious child of which her father had spoken. No wonder Eldon Parr
had misunderstood her, had sought to crush her spirit! She was to be
dealt with in no common way, nor was the consuming yearning he discerned
in her to be lightly satisfied.

"The God of the individualist," he said at length--musingly, not
accusingly.

"I am an individualist," she admitted simply. "But I am at least logical
in that philosophy, and the individualists who attend the churches to-day
are not. The inconsistency of their lives is what makes those of us who
do not go to church doubt the efficacy of their creed, which seems to
have no power to change them. The majority of people in St. John's are