sobs died away and I let go my drowning grasp on his wrist.

"That's just what I mean. That's just why I wouldn't have any more
respect for myself if I should go to your church than if I joined in one
of Mammy's foot-washings down at the river and fell in a fit of shouting
in which it took two burly coons to 'hold my spirit down,' as she
describes those gymnastics to me. I hate you and I hate my friends for
indulging in religion, because it is just as 'potent an agent of
intoxication' as exists to-day, and it blinds us to the need of work
along scientific lines for the immediate improvement of the race. What
right have we to intoxicate reason with religion? If religion is
anything it must be reason." I fairly hurled my words of half-baked
skepticism at him, with the vision of father and Dabney digging in the
garden, still in my eyes.

"I felt just as you do about it a year ago to-day," he answered me
quietly. "As you state the case of religion as emotion versus reason, it
doesn't exist. Religion is reason plus emotion, and when you combine the
two the eyes of your soul are open, whereas they had been closed. Nobody
can tell you about it, but you begin really to live when you see and
comprehend. Yes, it is going to take all the scientific reason the world
possesses to start its salvation, but it will not get far without
'emotion,' as you call what I _know_ is love of God, and, through that
love, compassion for man."

"The assumption that every man is blind who does not believe as you do,
stops all argument," I said scornfully.

"I didn't come to talk religion with you; I came over to get that apple
dumpling off my conscience, as I couldn't digest it because it wasn't
there. I preach twice, on Sunday and on Wednesday night, and I'm in my
study behind the altar every afternoon that I'm not playing tennis. I'll
be there any time by appointment." The worldly and protective raillery
in that young Methodist minister's voice almost interrupted my religious
researches, but I was in depths that were strange to me, and I was
floundering for a line out.

"I'll never be there," I flared at him, then went on with my
floundering. "If a man is blind, how can he gain the sight that you
arrogate to yourself?"

"A great man once prayed, 'Lord, help thou my unbelief,'" was the gentle
answer in which was that queer note of apostolic surety with which I
heard him address the woman in the garden that night.

"I can't pray--there's no