summed up for him the characteristics, the warring elements
in Alison Parr. "All afternoon," she wrote, "I have been thinking of
your sermon. It was to me very wonderful--it lifted me out of myself.
And oh, I want so much to believe unreservedly what you expressed
so finely, that religion is democracy, or the motive power behind
democracy--the service of humanity by the reborn. I understand it
intellectually. I am willing to work for such a Cause, but there is
something in me so hard that I wonder if it can dissolve. And then I
am still unable to identify that Cause with the Church as at present
constituted, with the dogmas and ceremonies that still exist. I am too
thorough a radical to have your patience. And I am filled with rage--I
can think of no milder word--on coming in contact with the living
embodiments of that old creed, who hold its dogmas so precious. 'Which
say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us
right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.'"

"You see, I have been reading Isaiah, and when I came to that paragraph
it seemed so appropriate. These people have always existed. And will
they not always continue to exist? I wish I could believe, wholly and
unreservedly, that this class, always preponderant in the world, could
be changed, diminished--done away with in a brighter future! I can, at
least, sympathize with Isaiah's wrath.

"What you said of the longing, the yearning which exists to-day amongst
the inarticulate millions moved me most--and of the place of art in
religion, to express that yearning. Religion the motive power of art,
and art, too, service. 'Consider the lilies of the field.' You have made
it, at least, all-comprehensive, have given me a new point of view for
which I can never be sufficiently grateful--and at a time when I needed
it desperately. That you have dared to do what you have done has been
and will be an inspiration, not only to myself, but to many others.
This, is a longer letter, I believe, than I have ever written in my
life. But I wanted you to know."

He reread it twice, pondering over its phrases. "A new point of view....
at a time when I needed it desperately." It was not until then that he
realized the full intensity of his desire for some expression from her
since the moment he had caught sight of her in the church. But he had
not been prepared for the unreserve, the impulsiveness with which she
had actually written. Such was h