nothing to do with the community. I'm going to live with
my wife in the desert."

"The good of your souls is chiefly concerned."

"Ah, the good of our souls!"

"And there are other reasons which can not be freely spoken of here."

"You mean the restriction and prohibition of sexual knowledge between
relatives. That is very well. But let us return to what concerns us
properly: the good of my soul, and the spiritual well-being of the
community,--what becomes of these, when I pay the prescribed alms and
obtain the sanction of the Bishop?"

"No harm then can come to them--they'll be secure."

"Secure, you say? Are they not hazarded, sold by your Church for five
hundred piasters? If my marriage to my cousin be wrong, unlawful, your
Bishop in sanctioning same is guilty of perpetuating this wrong, this
unlawfulness, is he not?"

"But what the Church binds only the Church can loosen."

"And what is the use of binding, O Reverend Father, when a little
sum of money can loosen anything you bind? It seems to me that these
prohibitions of the Church are only made for the purpose of
collecting alms. In other words, you bind for the sake of loosening,
when a good bait is on the hook, do you not? Pardon, O my Reverend
Father, pardon. I can not, to save my soul and yours, reconcile these
contradictions. For if Mother Church be certain that my marriage to my
cousin is contrary to the Law of God, is destructive of my spiritual
well-being, then let her by all means prohibit it. Let her restrain
me, compel me to obey. Ay, and the police ought to interfere in
case of disobedience. In her behalf, in my behalf, in the behalf of my
cousin's soul and mine, the police ought to do the will of God, if
the Church knows what it is, and is certain and honest about it.
Compel me to stop, I conjure you, if you know I am going in the way
of damnation. O my Father, what sort of a mother is she who would sell
two of her children to the devil for a few hundred piasters? No,
billah! no. What is unlawful by virtue of the Divine Law the wealth
of all the Trust-Kings of America can not make lawful. And what is so
by virtue of your Canon Law concerns not me. You may angle, you and
your Church, as long as you please in the murky, muddy waters of
Bind-and-Loosen, I have nothing to do with you."...

* * * * *

But the priests, O Khalid, have yet a little to do with you. Such
arguments about the Divine Law and t