other volumes, lay a Bible. He seemed to notice that my eye
fell upon it.

"Do you remember the story of the Prodigal Son?" he asked. "Well, that's
the parable of democracy, of self-government in the individual and in
society. In order to arrive at salvation, Paret, most of us have to take
our journey into a far country."

"A far country!" I exclaimed. The words struck a reminiscent chord.

"We have to leave what seem the safe things, we have to wander
and suffer in order to realize that the only true safety lies in
development. We have first to cast off the leading strings of authority.
It's a delusion that we can insure ourselves by remaining within its
walls--we have to risk our lives and our souls. It is discouraging when
we look around us to-day, and in a way the pessimists are right when
they say we don't see democracy. We see only what may be called the
first stage of it; for democracy is still in a far country eating the
husks of individualism, materialism. What we see is not true freedom,
but freedom run to riot, men struggling for themselves, spending on
themselves the fruits of their inheritance; we see a government intent
on one object alone--exploitation of this inheritance in order to
achieve what it calls prosperity. And God is far away."

"And--we shall turn?" I asked.

"We shall turn or perish. I believe that we shall turn." He fixed his
eyes on my face. "What is it," he asked, "that brought you here to me,
to-day?"

I was silent.

"The motive, Paret--the motive that sends us all wandering into is
divine, is inherited from God himself. And the same motive, after our
eyes shall have been opened, after we shall have seen and known the
tragedy and misery of life, after we shall have made the mistakes and
committed the sins and experienced the emptiness--the same motive will
lead us back again. That, too, is an adventure, the greatest adventure
of all. Because, when we go back we shall not find the same God--or
rather we shall recognize him in ourselves. Autonomy is godliness,
knowledge is godliness. We went away cringing, superstitious, we saw
everywhere omens and evidences of his wrath in the earth and sea and
sky, we burned candles and sacrificed animals in the vain hope of
averting scourges and other calamities. But when we come back it will
be with a knowledge of his ways, gained at a price,--the price he, too,
must have paid--and we shall be able to stand up and look him in the
face, and all