guish sheep from goats by the mere
intellectual test of the opinion they formed of his miracles. The world
to-day insists on moral tests--which Christianity has never done."

"Ah--now we are getting at it," remarked the Methodist, whose twinkling
eyes curiously belied his grimly solemn face. "Who was it that wished to
know the belief of the average unbeliever?"

"The average unbeliever," answered Bernal promptly, "no longer feels the
need of a Saviour--he knows that he must save himself. He no longer
believes in the God who failed always, from Eden to Calvary, failed even
to save his chosen tribe by that last device of begetting a son of a
human mother who should be sacrificed to him. He no longer believes that
he must have a mediator between himself and that God."

"Really, most refreshing," chortled Father Riley. "More, more!" and he
rapped for silence.

"The man of to-day must have a God who never fails. Disguise it as you
will, your Christian God was never loved. No God can be loved who
threatens destruction for not loving him. We cannot love one whom we are
not free _not_ to love."

"Where shall we find this God--outside of Holy Writ," demanded Floud,
who had once or twice restrained himself with difficulty, in spite of
his amusement.

"The true God comes to life in your own consciousness, if you will clear
it of the blasphemous preconceptions imposed by Christianity," answered
Bernal so seriously that no one had the heart to interrupt him. "Of
course we can never personify God save as a higher power of self. Moses
did no more; Jesus did no more. And if we could stop with this--be
content with saying 'God is better than the best man'--we should have a
formula permitting endless growth, even as He permits it to us. God has
been more generous to us than the Church has been to Him. While it has
limited Him to that god of bloody sacrifice conceived by a barbaric Jew,
He has permitted us to grow so that now any man who did not surpass him
morally, as the scriptures portray him, would be a man of inconceivable
malignity.

"You see the world has demonstrated facts that disprove the Godship of
your God and your Saviour. We have come, indeed, into a sense of such
certain brotherhood that we know your hell is a falsity. We know--a
knowledge of even the rudiments of psychology proves--_that there will
be a hell for all as long as one of us is there_. Our human nature is
such that one soul in hell would put every other