verywhere?"

"Yes."

"And what did he say sickness was?"

"He classed it with all evil under the one heading--a lie--a lie about
God."

"But when a person tells a lie, he doesn't speak the truth, does he?"

"No."

"And a lie has no rule, no principle?"

"No."

"And so it isn't anything--doesn't come from anything true--hasn't any
real life, has it?"

"No, a lie is utterly unreal, not founded on anything but supposition,
either ignorant or malicious."

"Then Jesus said sickness was a supposition, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"And God, who made everything real, didn't make suppositions. He made
only real things."

"True, child."

"Well, Padre dear, if you _know_ all that, why don't you act as if you
did?"

Act? Yes, act your knowledge! Acknowledge Him in all your ways! Then
He shall bring it to pass! What? That which is real--life, not
death--immortality, not oblivion--love, not hate--good, not evil!

"_Chiquita_--" His voice was thick. "You--you believe all that, don't
you?"

"No, Padre dear"--she smiled up at him through the darkness--"I don't
believe it, I _know_ it."

"But--how--how do you know it?"

"God tells me, Padre. I hear Him, always. And I prove it every day.
The trouble is, you believe it, but I don't think you ever try to
_prove_ it. If you believed my problems in algebra could be solved,
but never tried to prove it--well, you wouldn't do very much in
algebra, would you?" She laughed at the apt comparison.

Jose's straining eyes were peering straight ahead. Through the thick
gloom he saw the mutilated figure of the Christ hanging on its cross
beside the crumbling altar. It reflected the broken image of the
Christ-principle in the hearts of men. And was he not again crucifying
the gentle Christ? Did not the world daily crucify him and nail him
with their false beliefs to the cross of carnal error which they set
up in the Golgotha of their own souls? And were they not daily paying
the awful penalty therefor? Aye, paying it in agony, in torturing
agony of soul and body, in blasted hopes, crumbling ambitions, and
inevitable death!

"Padre dear, what did the good man say sickness came from?" Carmen's
soft voice brought him back from his reflections.

"Sickness? Why, he always coupled disease with sin."

"And sin?"

"Sin is--is unrighteousness."

"And that is--?" she pursued relentlessly.

"Wrong conduct, based on wrong thinking. And wrong thinking is based
on wrong beliefs, false th