rogress?"

"True, my child," replied the churchman. "And more, that our
so-called modern progress--modernism, free-thinking, liberty of
conscience, and the consequent terrible extravagance of beliefs and
false creeds--constitutes the greatest menace now confronting this
fair land. Its end is inevitable anarchy and chaos. Perhaps you can
see that."

"Monsignor," said Carmen, "in the Middle Ages the Church was supreme.
Emperors and kings bowed in submission before her. The world was
dominantly Catholic. Would you be willing, for the sake of Church
supremacy to-day, to return to the state of society and civilization
then obtaining?"

"That would not follow."

"No? I point you to Mexico, Cuba, the Philippines, South America, all
Catholic now or formerly, and I ask if you attribute not their
oppression, their ignorance, their low morals and stunted manhood, to
the dominance of churchly doctrines, which oppose freedom of
conscience and press and speech, and make learning the privilege of
the clergy and the rich?"

"It is an old argument, child," deprecated Lafelle. "May I not point
to France, on the contrary?"

"She has all but driven the Church from her borders."

"But is still Catholic!" he retorted. "And England, though Anglican,
calls herself Catholic. She will return to the true fold. Germany is
forsaking Luther, as she sees the old light shining still undimmed."

Carmen looked at Father Waite. The latter read in her glance an
invitation further to voice his own convictions.

"Monsignor doubtless misreads the signs of the times," he said slowly.
"The hour has struck for the ancient and materialistic theories
enunciated with such assumption of authority by ignorant, often
blindly bigoted theologians, to be laid aside. The religion of our
fathers, which is our present-day evangelical theology, was derived
from the traditions of the early churchmen. They put their seal upon
it; and we blindly accept it as authority, despite the glaring,
irrefutable fact that it is utterly undemonstrable. Why do the people
continue to be deceived by it? Alas! only because of its mesmeric
promise of immortality beyond the grave."

Monsignor bowed stiffly in the direction of Father Waite. "Fortunately,
your willingness to plunge the Christian world into chaos will fail of
concrete results," he said coldly.

"I but voice the sentiments of millions, Monsignor. For them, too, the
time has come to put by forever the paraphernalia of