erature, your laws, your customs, your very vices as well as your
virtues--as she was destined to be. It is her destiny--her manifest
destiny--and she can't change it if she would."

Mark drew in a deep breath that sounded like a sigh. "I suppose,
Father," he said, "I could argue with you and dispute with you; under
other circumstances perhaps I should. I hate to think that I may have
to give up my liberty; yet I am not going to argue, and I am not going
to dispute. I wanted information, and I got it. The questions I asked
were only for the purpose of drawing you out. But here is another: Why
should any institution come between a man and his God? Is that
necessary?"

The priest's eyes held a far-away look. It was some little while
before he spoke, and then very slowly, as if carefully weighing his
words.

"There is nothing," said the priest, "between the trees and the flowers
and their God--but they are only trees and flowers; they live, but they
neither think nor feel. There is nothing between the lower animals and
their God; but, though they live and feel, they have none of the higher
power of thought. If God had wanted man thus, why should he have given
him something more than the lower animals? Man cannot live and feel
only and still be a man. He must feed not only his body but his heart
and soul and intellect. The men who have nothing between themselves
and their God are mostly confined in lunatic asylums. The gift of
intelligence demands action by the intellect; and there must be a
foundation upon which to base action. When the foundation is in place,
there never can be any limit to the desire for building upon it. Now,
God willed all that. He created the condition and is, therefore,
obliged to satisfy the desires of that condition. Some day He must
satisfy the desires to the full; but now He is obliged only to keep
them fed, or to give them the means to keep fed. Of course, He could
do that by a direct revelation to each individual; but that He has not
done so is proved by the fact that, while there can be but one Truth,
yet each individual who 'goes it alone' has a different conception of
it. The idea of private religious inspiration has produced public
religious anarchy. Now, God could not will religious anarchy--He loves
truth too much. So reason tells us that He _must_ have done the thing
that His very nature would force Him to do. He _must_ have confided
His revelation to His Church