Miss Walton instantly became confused. She had no clear ideas about God, and after nervously turning the leaves of her Bible for a moment and blushing furiously, finally said so. The principal called upon several others, with a similar result. Everyone loved to listen to him, for his graceful diction was like music in their ears, but when called upon to express their own opinions they were all, with a few exceptions, literally tongue-tied. Two or three of the more thoughtful ones made an attempt to define Deity, but their definitions, for the most part, were the hackneyed ones of old theology.
The professor began to look rather weary, especially as he detected, here and there, a yawn behind an uplifted book. All at once a peculiar gleam leaped into his eyes.
"Miss Minturn, what is your conception of God?" he inquired, turning abruptly to her.
The question came almost as an electric shock to Katherine and brought the quick color to her cheeks.
But she quelled this sense of disquiet instantly.
"God is Spirit," she quietly replied.
"You mean that God is a spirit," quickly corrected the professor. "That definition has already been given several times; but I am trying to ascertain your own conception of Deity. Why did you omit the article?"
Katherine lifted her earnest brown eyes to him, and in them he read an expression of mingled surprise and appeal, and he knew, as well as if she had voiced her thought, that she remembered he had forbidden her to express her peculiar views and wished to obey him to the letter.
But having put the question, he intended to have an answer of some kind, while he also experienced some curiosity as to whether she could give a comprehensive explanation of the term she had used.
"If you purposely omitted the article," he resumed, as she was not quick to reply, "you must have had a reason for so doing; and,"— with a more courteous inflection—"as there is supposed to be perfect freedom in the class, both in asking questions and expressing opinions, we would like you to explain your position."