John: Go on.
Elinor: It is hardly likely, then, that He is perpetrating a colossal joke upon His creation by making the whole system experimental. It is conceivable that a brain which could evolve the intricate organism of a minute ant might be far-seeing enough to devise an immutable law which, when our evolution is sufficiently advanced, we shall be able to perceive, and to fall in with its action.
John: We are all as yet struggling in the dark, then?
Elinor: More or less. You see time is no object to God—these cycles which to us mean so much may be no more than a day to Him. I think you will admit we have let in a good deal of light in the last hundred years or so.
John: Well, yes. But just think, then, of the waste of time all the religions and conventions and superstitions have entailed in the past. It makes one giddy to realize it! Where would we be if we had always understood your basic principle?
Elinor: Nowhere. The evolution of the world has been perfectly necessary, my good John—you don’t ask children to play golf before they can walk.
John: No—but now I gather from your remarks that you would sweep away the incumbrances and restrictions of orthodox religions.
Elinor: Not at all! In a large family everyone cannot be grown up at the same time; the little ones have still to be thought of.
John: I think we are getting a bit out of our depths—had we not better get back to your muttons—in this case your idea of religion?
Elinor: But I have stated it plainly; it is simply to endeavor to keep the soul untarnished so as to return it to God—as a good butler keeps his employer’s silver under his charge highly polished, even though it is not all used every day.