f heretofore--or at least been forced to play
second fiddle to other races--because he lacked the right sort of a
drink. He has in his blood an excess of impulsive, imaginative, even
fantastic qualities. It is much easier for him to make a fool of
himself, to begin with, than it is for people of slower wits and more
sluggish temperaments. When you add whiskey to that, or that essence of
melancholia which in Ireland they call 'porther,' you get the Kelt at
his very weakest and worst. These young men down there are changing all
that. They have discovered lager. Already many of them can outdrink
the Germans at their own beverage. The lager-drinking Irishman in a few
generations will be a new type of humanity--the Kelt at his best. He
will dominate America. He will be THE American. And his church--with
the Italian element thrown clean out of it, and its Pope living, say, in
Baltimore or Georgetown--will be the Church of America."

"Let us have some more lager at once," put in Celia. "This revolution
can't be hurried forward too rapidly."

Theron could not feel sure how much of the priest's discourse was in
jest, how much in earnest. "It seems to me," he said, "that as things
are going, it doesn't look much as if the America of the future will
trouble itself about any kind of a church. The march of science must
very soon produce a universal scepticism. It is in the nature of human
progress. What all intelligent men recognize today, the masses must
surely come to see in time."

Father Forbes laughed outright this time. "My dear Mr. Ware," he said,
as they touched glasses again, and sipped the fresh beer that had been
brought them, "of all our fictions there is none so utterly baseless
and empty as this idea that humanity progresses. The savage's natural
impression is that the world he sees about him was made for him, and
that the rest of the universe is subordinated to him and his world, and
that all the spirits and demons and gods occupy themselves exclusively
with him and his affairs. That idea was the basis of every pagan
religion, and it is the basis of the Christian religion, simply because
it is the foundation of human nature. That foundation is just as firm
and unshaken today as it was in the Stone Age. It will always
remain, and upon it will always be built some kind of a religious
superstructure. 'Intelligent men,' as you call them, really have very
little influence, even when they all pull one way. The people as a