station,
and she rose to say good-by. 'You will see the truth some day,' she
said, and went away as cheerful as if the world was actually destroyed.
She was the happiest woman I have seen in a long time."

"Yes," I said, "it is an age of both faith and credulity."

"And nothing marks it more," Morgan added, "than the popular expectation
among the scientific and the ignorant of something to come out of the
dimly understood relation of body and mind. It is like the expectation
of the possibilities of electricity."

"I was going on to say," I continued, "that wherever I walk in the city
of a Sunday afternoon, I am struck with the number of little meetings
going on, of the faithful and the unfaithful, Adventists, socialists,
spiritualists, culturists, Sons and Daughters of Edom; from all the open
windows of the tall buildings come notes of praying, of exhortation,
the melancholy wail of the inspiring Sankey tunes, total abstinence
melodies, over-the-river melodies, songs of entreaty, and songs of
praise. There is so much going on outside of the regular churches!"

"But the churches are well attended," suggested my wife.

"Yes, fairly, at least once a day, and if there is sensational
preaching, twice. But there is nothing that will so pack the biggest
hall in the city as the announcement of inspirational preaching by some
young woman who speaks at random on a text given her when she steps
upon the platform. There is something in her rhapsody, even when it is
incoherent, that appeals to a prevailing spirit."'

"How much of it is curiosity?" Morgan asked. "Isn't the hall just as
jammed when the clever attorney of Nothingism, Ham Saversoul, jokes
about the mysteries of this life and the next?"

"Very likely. People like the emotional and the amusing. All the same,
they are credulous, and entertain doubt and belief on the slightest
evidence."

"Isn't it natural," spoke up Mr. Lyon, who had hitherto been silent,
"that you should drift into this condition without an established
church?"

"Perhaps it's natural," Morgan retorted, "that people dissatisfied with
an established religion should drift over here. Great Britain, you know,
is a famous recruiting-ground for our socialistic experiments."

"Ah, well," said my wife, "men will have something. If what is
established repels to the extent of getting itself disestablished, and
all churches should be broken up, society would somehow precipitate
itself again spiritually. I