hat an
ethical person doesn't want? Belief--faith doesn't consist in the mere
acceptance of a statement, but in something much higher--if we can
achieve it. Acceptance of authority is not faith, it is mere credulity,
it is to shirk the real issue. We must believe, if we believe at all,
without authority. If we knew, there would be no virtue in striving.
If I choose a God," she added, after a pause, "I cannot take a consensus
of opinion about him,--he must be my God."

Hodder did not speak immediately. Strange as it may seem, he had
never heard the argument, and the strength of it, reenforced by the
extraordinary vitality and earnestness of the woman who had uttered it,
had a momentary stunning effect. He sat contemplating her as she lay
back among the cushions, and suddenly he seemed to see in her the
rebellious child of which her father had spoken. No wonder Eldon Parr
had misunderstood her, had sought to crush her spirit! She was to be
dealt with in no common way, nor was the consuming yearning he discerned
in her to be lightly satisfied.

"The God of the individualist," he said at length--musingly, not
accusingly.

"I am an individualist," she admitted simply. "But I am at least logical
in that philosophy, and the individualists who attend the churches to-day
are not. The inconsistency of their lives is what makes those of us who
do not go to church doubt the efficacy of their creed, which seems to
have no power to change them. The majority of people in St. John's are
no more Christians than I am. They attend service once a week, and the
rest of the time they are bent upon getting all they can of pleasure
and profit for themselves. Do you wonder that those who consider this
spectacle come inevitably to the conclusion that either Christianity
is at fault, is outworn, or else that it is presented in the wrong way?"

The rector rose abruptly, walked to the entrance of the arbour, and stood
staring out across the garden. Presently he turned and came back and
stood over her.

"Since you ask me," he said slowly, "I do not wonder at it."

She raised her eyes swiftly.

"When you speak like that," she exclaimed with an enthusiasm that
stirred him, despite the trouble of his mind, "I cannot think of you as
a clergyman,--but as a man. Indeed," she added, in the surprise of her
discovery, "I have never thought of you as a clergyman--even when I first
saw you this morning. I could not account then for a sense of duality