“‘He doesn’t take to Robert?’
“‘No; he calls him a calf. Nobody is good enough for me, you know. He’d like me to marry some man with a hoe, who would take me to church and Sunday school every sabbath morning, and for a walk to the cemetery in the afternoon, and down to the prayer-meeting every Wednesday night, and on a journey from Genesis to Revelations once a year. It’s too much to expect of a human being. Then the hoes are in the hands of Poles, Slavs, and Italians. So what am I to do?’
“‘Well, you are young––you can afford to wait a while,’ I said.
“‘But not until I am old and all withered 136 up. I am going to marry the man I love within a year or so, if he has the good sense to ask me. Don’t you ever go to church?’
“‘No,’ I said.
“‘Why not?’
“I tried to think. There were the ministers––two boys and three old men––dried beef and veal! Not to my knowledge had a single one of them ever expressed an idea. They were seen, but not felt. The Church! Why, certainly, it was founded on the sweetness, strength, and sanity of a great soul. I had almost forgotten that. It had grown feeble. It had got its fortunes entangled in psychological hair. It should have been correcting the follies of the people––their selfishness, their sinful pride, their extravagance, their loss of honor and humanity. Had I not seen, in the case of Harry and his followers, how the Church had failed in its work? Ought it not to have sought and saved them long ago––saved them from needless disaster? It 137 should have been appealing to their consciences. If appeals had failed it should have stung them with ridicule or raised a voice like that of Christ against the Pharisees. The Church! Why, it was living, not in the present, but in the past. Here in Pointview the Church itself had become one of the greatest follies of the time.
“‘I want you to go next Sunday and hear Mr. Knowles, as a favor to me––won’t you?’ Marie asked.
“‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In the next five Sundays I shall go to every Protestant church in Pointview. I want to know what they’re doing. I shall put aside my scruples and go.’”