te his own body. Then only will he love his neighbor as
himself--still with a selfish love.

"Preach Man to man as a discovery in Godhood. You will not revive the
ancient glories of your Church, but you will build a new church to a God
for whom you will not need to quibble or evade or apologise. Then you
will make religion the one force, and you will rally to it those great
minds whose alienation has been both your reproach and your
embarrassment. You will enlist not only the scientist but the poet--and
all between. You will have a God to whom all confess instinctively."

CHAPTER XV

THE WOMAN AT THE END OF THE PATH

He stopped, noticing that the chairs were pushed back. There was an
unmistakeable air of boredom, though one or two of the men still smoked
thoughtfully. One of these, indeed--the high church rector--even came
back with a question, to the undisguised apprehension of several
brothers.

"You have formulated a certain fashion of belief, Mr. Linford, one I
dare say appealing to minds that have not yet learned that even reason
must submit to authority; but you must admit that this revelation of God
in the human heart carries no authoritative assurance of immortality."

Bernal had been sitting in some embarrassment, dismayed at his own
vehemence, but this challenge stirred him.

"True," he answered, "but let us thank God for uncertainty, if it take
the place of Christian belief in a sparsely peopled heaven and a crowded
hell."

"Really, you know--"

"I know nothing of a future life; but I prefer ignorance to a belief
that the most heinous baby that ever died in sin is to languish in a
state of damnation--even 'in a wide sense' as our good friend puts it."

"But, surely, that is the first great question of all people in all
ages--'If a man die shall he live again?'

"Because there has never been any dignified conception of a Supreme
Being. I have tried to tell you what my own faith is--faith in a God
wiser and more loving than I am, who, being so, has devised no mean
little scheme of revenge such as you preach. A God more loving than my
own human father, a God whose plan is perfect whether it involve my
living or dying. Whether I shall die to life or to death is not within
my knowledge; but since I know of a truth that the God I believe in must
have a scheme of worth and dignity, I am unconcerned. Whether his plan
demand extinction or immortality, I worship him for it, not holding him
to any