“But—don’t you believe?—isn’t the Church——?” murmured Frances, embarrassed.
“Dear child, I am afraid the orthodox forms mean very little to me. I would never wilfully cause pain to any human being, and I try to help the sadness of the world with my little songs, but that is all. But I would never shatter the innocent faith of another soul, although I have outgrown the need of form and ritual myself.”
“Does one outgrow it?” wistfully asked Frances, whose whole nature unconsciously craved the discipline which is inseparable from any creed, faithfully followed out in practice.
“Not all of us,” tenderly said Nina, conscious of the exquisite contrast between the matured, self-reliant soul, made strong through suffering, and the innocent, inquiring child at her knee. “Not all of us, dear. Some plants need a support round which to cling, whilst others stand alone—always alone.” Her voice deepened slightly as she mused broodingly for a moment on the pathos and beauty of this horticultural parable. It came as a slight shock when Frances, generally the most sympathetic of listeners, observed in unmistakably self-absorbed accents:
“I think that I shall always want a support. It seems to me that I am meant to live by rule—not by my own judgment at all. That’s why I like the Roman Catholic idea of the Church being infallible. It would be such a guide.”
Nina was aware that to no one else would Frances have spoken so unreservedly, and the reflection was soothing, but it did not prevent a slight stiffening of tone in her reply.
“Really, dear? But the surest guide in the world is the golden rule which I have tried to live up to all my life—Never think of yourself at all. Somehow, if one gives all one’s thoughts and time to other people, one finds that God takes care of the rest.”
Nina was herself rather surprised at the beauty of the sentiment as she put it into words, and it served to restore her not very deeply ruffled serenity.
“I will lend you some books, Frances, if you really want to know something about various creeds. The religion of Buddha is, to my mind, the most beautiful of them all,” reflectively said Nina, who had once read portions of Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation of the “Light of Asia,” and was persuaded that she had studied it deeply. “It was the foundation of the Roman Catholic religion, of course—they borrowed a great deal from it.”
“I should like to read it very much.”