"No, Eldrige, it will not require the revelations of eternity to convince me why the Church is cankered, worm-eaten and corrupt. I verily believe I can give you the reason this minute: it is because its advocates are hearers of the Truth, but not followers of it. Over there in Christian Edgerly men and women profess to follow Christ, and in their hearts they know that they stop with the professing. Not one man in ten will read the words of Christ and admit that they can be taken as a rule of life and conduct.
"'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so to them.'
"Where is the man who does this? The poor, the needy, the suffering, the down-trodden, the unfortunate, they circle the globe, they are in every land, every clime, every city, town and hamlet; the voice of their cries by day and their groanings by night is never still; naked, they are not clothed; hungry, they are not fed; thirsty, they are not given drink; and these are 'the others.' Where is the man who does unto them as he would be done by? Do you? Do I?
"And where is the man who loves his neighbor as himself? Where would be the stress and strife of life, the wear and tear, the wrangle and scramble, the heartache and crime, the murder and suicide, if this precept were followed? Where would be all this agitation about labor and capital, the piling up of wealth on one hand and biting poverty on the other, if men--Christian men--loved their neighbors as themselves? Wise men of our generation are trying to devise ways and formulate plans to regulate the differences and disagreements among men; but even the reformers disagree among themselves and dissensions grow greater from year to year. Do men think that they are wiser than God? Do they think that if there is a better way Christ would have failed to tell us about it? Yet we are deaf to the simple words of the divine Teacher, the grandest precept ever given, the one and only panacea for the world's discord, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'"
"If only the world had such a religion as that, Max, Christianity would be Christian."
"And Christianity never will be Christian until men believe what they profess to believe. I am not much of a Bible scholar, I was brought up to reverence the Bible, not to read it, but I know that we are told that faith without works is dead. There is faith enough in the world, if it were alive, to save the world--but it is dead, dead and buried, and the devil is dancing to his hornpipes over its burial place--the opaque hearts of men. A general may fight a battle with an army of men, if they are alive--but if they are dead, dead in the trenches, they will not put up much of a fight. Yet the absurdity of fighting a battle with dead men is not greater than the inconsistency of a religion with a dead faith.
"I have not yet learned to understand the scientific principle back of the kind of religion that has been at work on this Flat; but I know that the faith of a grain of mustard seed would remove mountains of sin and crime and unholy desire from our land. A grain of mustard seed is alive, pregnant; given favorable conditions it will expand and increase, and flower and produce again, demonstrating the power of the Invisible. This work here on this Flat started from a grain of mustard seed; a grain sown and tended and watered and tilled by a woman's hand. And the Christian city and the stately church marvel that God has given the increase. You and I have special cause to honor this woman and her work, Eldrige, and we both owe her an endless debt of gratitude."
Again their hands met in silent companionship. Then Max arose. "I am afraid we have forgotten the ladies," he said. "Let us go and join them in the garden."
The doctor followed his friend, and he no longer felt that he failed to understand him; he was just an honest man, nothing more--nothing less.
CHAPTER XX