“No? I point you to Mexico, Cuba, the Philippines, South America, all Catholic now or formerly, and I ask if you attribute not their oppression, their ignorance, their low morals and stunted manhood, to the dominance of churchly doctrines, which oppose freedom of conscience and press and speech, and make learning the privilege of the clergy and the rich?”
“It is an old argument, child,” deprecated Lafelle. “May I not point to France, on the contrary?”
“She has all but driven the Church from her borders.”
“But is still Catholic!” he retorted. “And England, though Anglican, calls herself Catholic. She will return to the true fold. Germany is forsaking Luther, as she sees the old light shining still undimmed.”
Carmen looked at Father Waite. The latter read in her glance an invitation further to voice his own convictions.
“Monsignor doubtless misreads the signs of the times,” he said slowly. “The hour has struck for the ancient and materialistic theories enunciated with such assumption of authority by ignorant, often blindly bigoted theologians, to be laid aside. The religion of our fathers, which is our present-day evangelical theology, was derived from the traditions of the early churchmen. They put their seal upon it; and we blindly accept it as authority, despite the glaring, irrefutable fact that it is utterly undemonstrable. Why do the people continue to be deceived by it? Alas! only because of its mesmeric promise of immortality beyond the grave.”
Monsignor bowed stiffly in the direction of Father Waite. “Fortunately, your willingness to plunge the Christian world into chaos will fail of concrete results,” he said coldly.
“I but voice the sentiments of millions, Monsignor. For them, too, the time has come to put by forever the paraphernalia of images, candles, and all the trinkets used in the pagan ceremonial which has so quenched our spirituality, and to seek the undivided garment of the Christ.”
“Indeed!” murmured Lafelle.
“The world to-day, Monsignor, stands at the door of a new era, an era which promises a grander concept of God and religion, the tie which binds all to Him, than has ever before been known. We are thinking. We are pondering. We are delving, studying, reflecting. And we are at last beginning to work with true scientific precision and system. As in chemistry, mathematics, and the physical sciences, so in matters religious, we are beginning to prove our working hypotheses. 174 And so a new spiritual enlightenment is come. People are awaking to a dim perception of the meaning of spiritual life, as exemplified in Jesus Christ. And they are vaguely beginning to see that it is possible to every one. The abandonment of superstition, religious and other, has resulted in such a sudden expansion of the human mind that the most marvelous material progress the world has ever witnessed has come swiftly upon us, and we live more intensely in a single hour to-day than our fathers lived in weeks before us. Oh, yes, we are already growing tired of materiality. The world is not yet satisfied. We are not happy. But, Monsignor, let not the Church boast itself that the acceptance of her mediaeval dogmas will meet the world’s great need. That need will be met, I think, only as we more and more clearly perceive the tremendous import of the mission of Jesus, and learn how to grasp and apply the marvelous Christ-principle which he used and told us we should likewise employ to work out our salvation.”