"I do not know."
"You seem to have some attraction for each other," she went on—"And I suppose your beliefs are alike. To me they are dreadful beliefs!—worse than barbarism!"
I looked at her with all the compassion I truly felt.
"Why? Because we believe that God is all love and tenderness and justice?—because we cannot think He would have created life only to end in death?—because we are sure that He allows nothing to be wasted, not even a thought?—and nothing to go unrecompensed, either in good or in evil? Surely these are not barbarous beliefs?"
A curious look came over her face.
"If I believed in anything,"—she said—"I would rather be orthodox, and believe in the doctrine of original sin and the Atonement."
"Then you would start with the idea that the supreme and all-wise Creator could not make a perfect work!" I said—"And that He was obliged to invent a scheme to redeem His own failure! Catherine, if you speak of barbarism, this is the most barbarous belief of all!"
She stared at me, amazed.
"You would be put out of any church in Christendom for such a speech as that!" she said.
"Possibly!" I answered, quietly—"But I should not and could not be put out of God's Universe—nor, I am certain, would He reject my soul's eternal love and adoration!"