everyday life, have failed to embody it in practice, and have sought an
escape from the apparent impossibility of doing so, by smothering it with
dogmas, and diverting its scope from this world to the next. It will be
time to look for a new religion, when we have succeeded in the literal
application of the ethics of the one we have got to the social and
economic problems of daily life. It is not by any intellectual effort or
scientific process that the discovery will be made of how this is to be
done, but by the introduction into the organism of new and unsuspected
potencies of moral force which have hitherto lain dormant in nature,
waiting for the great invocation of wearied and distressed humanity.
There can be no stronger evidence of the approach of this new force,
destined to make the ethics of Christianity a practical social standard,
than the growing demand of society for a new religion. It is the
inarticulate utterance of the quickened human aspiration, in itself a
proof that these new potencies are already stirring the dry bones of
Christendom, and a sure earnest that their coming in answer to that
aspiration will not be long delayed.

_Drygull_. Of course, I entirely disagree with you as to any such
necessity in regard to the moral requirements of the world, existing. You
must have met, in the course of your travels, that more enlightened and
initiated class of Buddhists, with whom I sympathise, who are quite
indifferent to considerations of this nature.

_Rollestone_. And who were too much occupied with their subjective
prospects in Nirvana, to be affected by the needs of terrestrial
humanity.

_Drygull_. Quite so.

_Mrs Allmash_. And, Mr Allyside, I am afraid you are equally
indifferent.

_Ali Seyyid_. I am certainly not indifferent to the discovery of any
force latent in Christendom which may check the force of its cupidity,
and put a stop to the _exploitation_ and subjugation of Eastern countries
for the sake of advancing its own material interests, under the specious
pretext of introducing the blessings of civilisation.

_Coldwaite_. You have certainly presented the matter in a light which is
altogether new to me, Mr Rollestone, and upon which, therefore, I am not
now prepared to express an opinion. I should like to discuss the subject
with you further privately.

_Rollestone_. It is a subject which should never be discussed except
privately.

_Mrs Allmash_. Now, I should say, Mr Rol