Daddy Manning saved the rector the pain of any answer.
“You’re a religious anarchist,” he charged Gail.
Her face softened.
“By no means,” she replied. “I am a devoted follower of the Divine Spirit, the Divine Will, the Divine Law; but not of the church; for it has forgotten these things.”
“You don’t know what you are saying,” the rector told her.
“That isn’t all you mean,” she retorted. “What you have in mind is that, being a woman, and young, I should be silent. You would not permit thought if you could avoid it, for when people begin to think, religion lives but the church dies; as it is doing to-day.”
Now the Reverend Smith Boyd could be triumphant. There was a curl of sarcasm on his lips.
“Are you quite consistent?” he charged. “You have just been objecting to the prosperity of the church.”
“Financially,” she admitted; “but it is a spiritual bankrupt. Your financial prosperity is a direct sign of your religious decay. Your financial bankruptcy will come later, as it has done in France, as it is doing in Italy, as it will do all over the world. Humanity treats the church with the generosity due a once valuable servant who has out-lived his usefulness.”
“My dear child, humanity can never do without religion,” interposed Daddy Manning.