t establish
the right love-connections. We must set the love-current flowing, and
keep it flowing, _from God to us and from us back to God_; and this can
be done only by confessing our sins, by cleansing our hearts of evil
thoughts and desires. _Not even God Himself can make the sun shine upon
those who wilfully hide in the shadows!_

I saw that they were listening impatiently and more than once Roberta
tried to interrupt me, but I persisted and said what I had to say as
well as I could, with all the love in my heart, for I knew that my
precious Penelope's fate was hanging in the balance.

When I had finished Roberta got up from the bed where she had been
sitting and lighted a cigarette.

"Now, then, it's my turn," she began. I could see her eyes shining with
an evil purpose. "You've heard her pretty little speech, Pen. You've
heard her talk about the wonderful power of God's love, and a great
rigamarole about how it guards us from all evil, if we say our prayers
and confess our sins and so on. I say that is all bunk, and I can prove
it. Take women--they've always said their prayers more than men, always
confessed their sins more than men, always been more loving than men,
haven't they? And what's the result? Has God protected them from the
evils of life more than men? He has not. God has let women get the worst
of it right straight along through the centuries. Women have always been
the slaves of men, haven't they?--in spite of all their love and
devotion, in spite of all their prayers and tears? How do you account
for that?"

She flashed this at me with a wicked little toss of her head and
Penelope chimed in: "Yes, I'd like to know that myself." But, when I
tried to answer, Roberta cut me off with a new flood of violence.

"I'll let you know how I account for it," she went on angrily. "It's
because all the churches in the world, all the smug preachers in the
world, like you, have gone on shooting out this very same kind of hot
air that you've been giving us; and the women, silly fools, have fallen
for it. _But not the men!_ The women have tried to live by love and
prayer and unselfishness; they have said: 'God's will be done,' 'God
will protect us'; and what is the result? How has God protected the
women, who _did_ believe? And how has He punished the men who refused to
believe? He has made the men masters of the world, lords of everything;
and He has kept the women in bondage, hasn't He?--in factory bondage, in