elation," he said at length. "But the mere
ceremonies need not stand in your way. Surely you can disregard them and
feel the truths behind."

"Oh, yes!" answered Esther, plunging still deeper into the morass. "The
ceremonies are picturesque and I could get used to them, but the
doctrines are more Pagan than the ceremonies. Now I have hurt your
feelings enough, and will say no more. What I have said proves that I am
not fit to be your wife. Let me go in peace!"

Again Hazard thought a moment with a grave face. Then he said: "Every
church is open to the same kind of attack you make on ours. Do you mean
to separate yourself from all communion?"

"If you will create a new one that shall be really spiritual, and not
cry: 'flesh--flesh--flesh,' at every corner, I will gladly join it, and
give my whole life to you and it."

Hazard shook his head: "I can suggest nothing more spiritual than what
came from the spirit itself, and has from all time satisfied the purest
and most spiritual souls."

"If I could make myself contented with what satisfied them, I would do
it for your sake," answered Esther. "It must be that we are in a new
world now, for I can see nothing spiritual about the church. It is all
personal and selfish. What difference does it make to me whether I
worship one person, or three persons, or three hundred, or three
thousand. I can't understand how you worship any person at all."

Hazard literally groaned, and his involuntary expression so irritated
Esther that she ran on still more recklessly.

"Do you really believe in the resurrection of the body?" she asked.

"Of course I do!" replied Hazard stiffly.

"To me it seems a shocking idea. I despise and loathe myself, and yet
you thrust self at me from every corner of the church as though I loved
and admired it. All religion does nothing but pursue me with self even
into the next world."

Esther had become very animated in the course of her remarks, and not
the less so because she saw Hazard frown and make gestures of impatience
as she passed from one sacrilege to another. At last he turned at bay,
and broke out:

"Do you think all this is new to me? I know by heart all these
criticisms of the church. I have heard them in one form and another ever
since I was a boy at school. They are all equally poor and ignorant.
They touch no vital point, for they are made by men, like your cousin
George Strong, from whom I suppose you got them, who know nothing of th