Hester turned round impatiently, "Ever, ever an obstacle! Yet I will not give up. There must be a way of improving mankind, and I will find it yet."
These discussions were frequently renewed, but with little better success. On one occasion Eugene was present, and he said with a smile, "So you, too, are seeking the philosopher's stone, sister? I doubt you will not find it in exterior relationships or in material circumstance; evil is in the world—evil to a larger amount than you have any conception of, and no exterior arrangement will suffice to banish it. Set man free, as you term it, from the restraint of overlabor, without awakening the interior impulse to realize a higher life, and the chances are that the ale-house or gin-shop will be his school."
"But will not education affect this awakening?"
"Education on a right basis would undoubtedly do much, but not education on a selfish basis; not if the highest aim is to improve in temporalities, not if virtue is proposed as the best policy to forward earthly views. This would be merely teaching a system of selfish calculation that would make man neither wiser nor better, and consequently not happier."
"And what other motive would you suggest, brother?"
Eugene glanced at his father and hesitated. After a moment's pause, he said: "Some philosophers, and among them the divine Plato, have thought that within man dwelt an essence called a soul, and that its culture furnished motives superior to all others in enlightening man. There are other theories respecting the soul worth studying too, I think. That which has influenced Europe during eighteen hundred years has been the religion of Christ. Have you ever studied that, Hester?"
"No! I thought it was a superstition akin to, though distinct from, the ancient pagan mythology."
"You will not find it so." rejoined her brother, "or rather you will find it the opposite. Paganism is the worship of self, of sensuality, of self-aggrandizement, and of physical power. Christianity is the worship of spirituality; it triumphs over selfishness by divine love, and elevates the soul by the same influence above the paltry views emanating from an exclusive adhesion to man's lower nature."
Mr. Godfrey's lowering brow betokened a rising storm. Eugene made his escape, and Hester laid her hand on her father's shoulder, and said coaxingly, "Did you not say I might study every influence, papa, that has affected humanity? Why not study this of which Eugene speaks?"