.

"Do you remember the story of the Prodigal Son?" he asked. "Well, that's
the parable of democracy, of self-government in the individual and in
society. In order to arrive at salvation, Paret, most of us have to take
our journey into a far country."

"A far country!" I exclaimed. The words struck a reminiscent chord.

"We have to leave what seem the safe things, we have to wander and suffer
in order to realize that the only true safety lies in development. We
have first to cast off the leading strings of authority. It's a delusion
that we can insure ourselves by remaining within its walls--we have to
risk our lives and our souls. It is discouraging when we look around us
to-day, and in a way the pessimists are right when they say we don't see
democracy. We see only what may be called the first stage of it; for
democracy is still in a far country eating the husks of individualism,
materialism. What we see is not true freedom, but freedom run to riot,
men struggling for themselves, spending on themselves the fruits of their
inheritance; we see a government intent on one object alone--exploitation
of this inheritance in order to achieve what it calls prosperity. And God
is far away."

"And--we shall turn?" I asked.

"We shall turn or perish. I believe that we shall turn." He fixed his
eyes on my face. "What is it," he asked, "that brought you here to me,
to-day?"

I was silent.

"The motive, Paret--the motive that sends us all wandering into is
divine, is inherited from God himself. And the same motive, after our
eyes shall have been opened, after we shall have seen and known the
tragedy and misery of life, after we shall have made the mistakes and
committed the sins and experienced the emptiness--the same motive will
lead us back again. That, too, is an adventure, the greatest adventure of
all. Because, when we go back we shall not find the same God--or rather
we shall recognize him in ourselves. Autonomy is godliness, knowledge is
godliness. We went away cringing, superstitious, we saw everywhere omens
and evidences of his wrath in the earth and sea and sky, we burned
candles and sacrificed animals in the vain hope of averting scourges and
other calamities. But when we come back it will be with a knowledge of
his ways, gained at a price,--the price he, too, must have paid--and we
shall be able to stand up and look him in the face, and all our childish
superstitions and optimisms shall have been burned away."