"Well, it is bewildering enough to be told that you are actually living under the régime of Collectivism—a thing which we always considered impossible; but I confess what piques my curiosity most is this cult of Demeter——"
A scowl came over Chairo's face.
"How much do you know about it?" said he.
"Nothing, except that Lydia is a Demetrian and that she is to be married to some mathematician——"
"Married!" interrupted Chairo. "It cannot be called a marriage! It is a desecration!" He paused a moment as if to collect himself and then began again in a calmer voice:
"It is difficult for me to speak of it without impatience; but declamation which is well enough on the rostrum is not tolerable in conversation, so I shall not give way to it. The cult of Demeter is an abomination—one of the natural fruits of State Socialism, which, to my mind, means the paralysis of individual effort and death to individual liberty. I lead the opposition in our legislature, and you will, therefore, take all I say with the allowance due to one who has struggled, his whole life through, against what I believe to be an intolerable abuse. The cult of Demeter is nothing more nor less than the attempt to breed men as men breed animals. It totally disregards the fact that a man has a soul, and that the demands of a soul are altogether paramount over those of the body. To attempt to breed men along purely physical or mental lines without regard to psychical aspirations is contrary not only to common sense, but to the highest religion. Did not Christ Himself say, 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul'?"
"You quote Christ," interrupted I. "Is it possible that the Christian religion can live side by side with the cult of Demeter?"
"Yes," said Chairo, "and this is perhaps just where the mischief lies. Christianity has remained among us as the religion of sacrifice; and the priests of Demeter bolster up their hideous doctrine and their exorbitant power by appeal to this religion of sacrifice."
"But where," asked I, "do they derive this power of theirs?"
"Where else," answered Chairo, "but through the hold they have upon the imagination of the women—that terrible need for ritual which has given the priest his power ever since the world began. Gambetta was right, 'Le cléricalisme; voilá l'ennemi.'"