"Can you even suppose that I or any one can be a Christian without
Christ?"
He gave one of his incredulous shrugs.
"Now what may that mean?" she asked.
"Pardon me if I say that I think yours is a pretty and harmless superstition. This world is one of inexorable law and necessity down to the minutest thing. A weed is always a weed. A rose is always a rose. It's my misfortune to be a weed. It's your good fortune to be a rose."
Annie looked as if she might become a briery one at that moment, for this direct style of compliment, though honest, was not agreeable. Conscious of many struggles with evil, it was even painful, for it did her injustice in two aspects of the case. So she said, dryly, "What an automaton you make me out to be!"
"How so?" "If I merely do right as the rose grows, I deserve no credit.
I'm but little better than a machine."
"Not at all. I compared you to something that has a beautiful life of its own. But I would willingly be a machine, and a very angular, uncouth one too, if some outside power would only work me right and to some purpose."
"Such talk seems to me idle, Mr. Gregory. I know that I have to try very hard to do right, and I often fail. I do not believe that our very existence begins in a lie, as it were, for from earliest years conscience tells us that we needn't do wrong and ought not to. Honestly now, isn't this true of your conscience?"
"But my reason concludes otherwise, and reason is above conscience—above everything, and one must abide by its decisions."
For a moment Annie did not know how to answer. She was not versed in theology and metaphysics, but she knew he was wrong. Therefore she covered her confusion by quietly pouring him out another cup of tea, and then said, "Even my slight knowledge of the past has taught me how many absurd and monstrous things can be done and said in the name of reason. Religion is a matter of revelation and experience. But it is not contrary to reason, certainly not to mine. If your reason should conclude that this tea is not hot, what difference would that make to me? My religion is a matter of fact, of vivid consciousness."