“Don’t, please!” laughed Carmen. “We have enough to meet, without going out of our way to stir up more. Let it all work out now, as it will, in the right way.”
“In the right way, eh? Is that part of your doctrine? Say, don’t you think that in formulating a new religion you’re carrying coals to Newcastle? Seems to me we’ve got enough now, if we’d practice ’em.”
“My religion, Mr. Haynerd, is only the practice of the teachings of a Nazarene Jew, named Jesus,” she replied gently.
“Well, my religion is Socialism, I guess,” he said lightly.
“So’s mine,” she quickly returned. “I’m a thorough Socialist. So we meet on common ground, don’t we?” She held out her hand, and he took it, a puzzled expression coming into his face.
“Well,” he said, glancing about, “we’ll have to dispute that later. I see Father Waite is about to open this little religious seminar. But we’ll get back to the discussion of myself,” he added, his eyes twinkling. “For, like Thoreau, I prefer to discuss that subject, because there’s no other about which I know so much.”
“Nor so little,” she added, laughing and squeezing his hand as she turned from him.
The little coterie took their places around the dining room table, which was well strewn with books of reference and writing materials. Father Waite rapped gently for order. A deep, reverent silence fell upon the group. They had begun their search for God.
“Friends,” began Father Waite slowly, “we are inaugurating to-night a mission of the most profound significance. No question so vitally touches the human race as the one which we shall reverently discuss in this and subsequent meetings. I thought as I came in here to-night of the wisdom of Epictitus, who said, ‘What do I want? To acquaint myself with the true order of things and comply with it.’ I am sure no statement so fully expresses our common desire as that.”