“Oh! Ravins!” Mr. Dad burst out, unable to contain himself.
“You may think my mind is fevered because my body is in pain; but never was my mind clearer than it is now. It is as if I stood already half out of this little life that has held me so long. It is not a dream I tell, but a reality. The world is for man, the stars in their courses are for man—if only he will follow the God who calls to him and take the gift God offers. As I sit here and talk of these things to you here, they become so plain to me that I cannot understand your silence and why you do not burn—as I burn—with the fire of God’s purpose....”
He stopped short. He seemed to have come to the end of his strength. His chin sank, and his voice when he spoke again was the voice of a weak and weary man.
“I talk.... I talk.... And then a desolating sense of reality blows like a destroying gust through my mind, and my little lamp of hope goes out....
“It is as if some great adversary sat over all my world, mocking me in every phrase I use and every act I do....”
He sighed deeply.
“Have I answered your questions, doctor?” he asked.
§ 6
“You speak of God,” said Dr. Barrack. “But this that you speak of as God, is it really what men understand by God? It seems to me, as I said to begin with, it is just a personification of the good will in us all. Why bring in God? God is a word that has become associated with all sorts of black and cruel things. It sets one thinking of priesthoods, orthodoxies, persecutions. Why do you not call this upward and onward power Humanity? Why do you not call it the Spirit of Men? Then it might be possible for an Agnostic like myself to feel a sort of agreement....”
“Because I have already shown you it is not humanity, it is not the spirit of men. Humanity, the spirit of men, made poison gas and the submarine; the spirit of man is jealous, aggressive and partizan. Humanity has greed and competition in grain, and the spirit of man is fear and hatred, secrecy and conspiracy, quite as much as, much more than, it is making or order. But this spirit in me, this fire which I call God, was lit, I know not how, but as if it came from outside....