id Dr. Ledsmar, lighting a fresh cigar. "I
daresay every one you saw there had come either to take the pledge, or
see to it that one of the others took it. That is the chief industry
in the hall, so far as I have observed. Now discipline is an important
element in the machinery here. Coming to take the pledge implies that
you have been drunk and are now ashamed. Both states have their values,
but they are opposed. Sitting on that bench tends to develop penitence
to the prejudice of alcoholism. But at no stage would it ever occur to
the occupant of the bench that he was the best judge of how long he was
to sit there, or that his priest should interrupt his dinner or general
personal routine, in order to administer that pledge. Now, I daresay you
have no people at all coming to 'swear off.'"

The Rev. Mr. Ware shook his head. "No; if a man with us got as bad as
all that, he wouldn't come near the church at all. He'd simply drop out,
and there would be an end to it."

"Quite so," interjected the doctor. "That is the voluntary system. But
these fellows can't drop out. There's no bottom to the Catholic Church.
Everything that's in, stays in. If you don't mind my saying so--of
course I view you all impartially from the outside--but it seems logical
to me that a church should exist for those who need its help, and not
for those who by their own profession are so good already that it is
they who help the church. Now, you turn a man out of your church who
behaves badly: that must be on the theory that his remaining in would
injure the church, and that in turn involves the idea that it is the
excellent character of the parishioners which imparts virtue to the
church. The Catholics' conception, you see, is quite the converse. Such
virtue as they keep in stock is on tap, so to speak, here in the church
itself, and the parishioners come and get some for themselves according
to their need for it. Some come every day, some only once a year, some
perhaps never between their baptism and their funeral. But they all
have a right here, the professional burglar every whit as much as the
speckless saint. The only stipulation is that they oughtn't to come
under false pretences: the burglar is in honor bound not to pass himself
off to his priest as the saint. But that is merely a moral obligation,
established in the burglar's own interest. It does him no good to come
unless he feels that he is playing the rules of the game, and one of
these i