ercial spirit of the age. They do not perceive that the only remedy
against this degeneracy is the renewal of faith in something greater and
higher than our material needs. Let them preach for a while the blessings
of poverty and other-worldliness. The attempt to instil benevolence or
so-called human justice into society as the chief message of religion is
merely to play into the hands of the enemy. Do you see why I call them the
real followers of Simon Magus, who sought to buy the gift of God with a
price? "Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter; for thy heart is
not right in the sight of God."

Consider how impossible it would have been in any age of genuine or real
creativeness for a leading preacher of Christianity to have pronounced Dr.
Abbott's words, and you will see how far humanitarianism has fallen from
faith in the spirit. I know that passages maybe quoted from the Bible
which might seem to make Christ himself responsible for this new Simony;
but Satan, too, may quote Scripture. Surely the whole tenor of Christ's
teaching is the strongest rebuke to this lowering of the spirit's demands.
He spent his life to bring men into communion with God, not to modify
their worldly surroundings. Indeed, the world was to him a place of misery
and iniquity, doomed to speedy destruction. He sought to save a remnant
from the wrath of judgment as a brand is plucked from the fire, and he
separated his disciples utterly from acquiescence in the comforts of this
earth; they were to be in the world but not of it: "Render unto Caesar the
things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." He
taught poverty and not material progress. Those he praised were the poor
and the meek and the unresisting and the persecuted--those who were cut
off from the hopes of the world.

And now, dear girl, do you ask me to apply my preaching to my own case? Of
a truth I have faith. I think it my true service to men that I should
learn to love you greatly; and out of that love shall flow charity and
justice and righteousness toward the world. Let it be my meed of service
that men shall see the beauty of my homage.

XXV

PHILIP TO JESSICA

DEAR JESSICA:

The end has come even sooner than I looked for it. This afternoon, little
Jack, our goblin boy, came to my office and I followed him back to the
dismal court where his father lay expecting me. I had arranged that the
poor wretch should be carried into a room where at