God that
permits evil. For when you tell me that my assertion is a mere
quibble--that it matters not whether we call a man unselfish or wisely
selfish--you fail to see that, when we understand this truth, there is
no longer any sin. 'Sin' is then seen to be but a mistaken notion of
what brings happiness. Last night's burglar and your bishop differ not
morally but intellectually--one knowing surer ways of achieving his own
happiness, being more sensitive to that oneness of the race which
thrills us all in varying degrees. When you know this--that the
difference is not moral but intellectual, self-righteousness disappears
and with it a belief in moral difference--the last obstacle to the
realisation of our oneness. It is in the church that this fiction of
moral difference has taken its final stand.

"And not only shall we have no full realisation of the brotherhood of
man until this inevitable, equal selfishness is understood, but we shall
have no rational conception of virtue. There will be no sound morality
until it is taught for its present advantage to the individual, and not
for what it may bring him in a future world. Not until then will it be
taught effectively that the well-being of one is inextricably bound up
with the well-being of all; that while man is always selfish, his
selfish happiness is still contingent on the happiness of his brother."

The moment of coffee had come. The Unitarian lighted a black cigar and
avidly demanded more reasons why the Christian religion was immoral.

"Still for the reason that it separates," continued Bernal, "separates
not only hereafter but here. We have kings and serfs, saints and
sinners, soldiers to kill one another--God is still a God of Battle.
There is no Christian army that may not consistently invoke your God's
aid to destroy any other Christian army--none whose spiritual guides do
not pray to God for help in the work of killing other Christians. So
long as you have separation hereafter, you will have these absurd
divisions here. So long as you preach a Saviour who condemns to
everlasting punishment for disbelief, so long you will have men pointing
to high authority for all their schemes of revenge and oppression here.

"Not until you preach a God big enough to save all can you arouse men to
the truth that all must be saved. Not until you have a God big enough to
love all can you have a church big enough to hold all.

"An Indian in a western town must have mastere