ion, truth. It was his
God-given privilege. Who had the right to lay a detaining hand upon
him? Was not his soul his own, and his God's?

Then a dark hand stole out from the surrounding shadows and closed the
doors. From the blackness there seemed to rise a hollow voice,
uttering the single word, _Honor_. He thrust out an arm, as if to ward
off the assaults of temptation. "No, no," he said aloud, "I am bound
to the Church!"

"But why remain longer in an institution with which you are quite out
of sympathy?" the explorer urged.

"First, to help the Church. Who will uplift her if we desert her? And,
second, to help this, my ancestral country," replied Jose in deep
earnestness.

"Worthy aims, both," assented Hitt. "But, my friend, what will you
accomplish here, unless you can educate these people to think? I have
learned much about conditions in this country. I find that the priest
in Colombia is even more intolerant than in Ireland, for here he has a
monopoly, no competition. He is absolute. The Colombian is the logical
product of the doctrines of Holy Church. It is so in Mexico. It is so
wherever the curse of a fixed mentality is imposed upon a people. For
that engenders determined opposition to mobility. It quenches
responsiveness to new concepts and new ideas. It throttles a nation.
The bane of mental progress is the _Semper Idem_ of your Church."

"Christianity will remove the curse."

"I have no doubt whatever of that. It probably is the future cure for
all social ills and evils of every sort. But if so, it must be the
Christianity which Jesus taught and demonstrated--not the theological
chaff now disseminated in his name. Do not forget that we no longer
know what Christianity is. It is a lost science."

"It can and will be recovered!" cried Jose warmly.

"I have said that is foreshadowed. But we must have the whole garment
of the Christ, without human _addenda_. He is reported as having said,
'The works that I do bear witness of me.' Now the works of the
Christian Church bear ample witness that she has not the true
understanding of the Christ. Nor has that eminent Protestant divine,
now teaching in a theological seminary in the States, who recently
said that, although Jesus ministered miraculously to the physical man,
yet it was not his intention that his disciples should continue that
sort of ministry; that the healing which Jesus did was wholly
incidental, and was not an example to be permanently imitate