Phyllis of Philistia | Page 9

was enough."
"And you could write that letter to me solely as the evidence of one
wretched print? Oh, Phyllis!"
Pain was in his voice. It may have been in his face as well, but she did
not see it; his face was averted from her.
"Yes," she said quietly; "I wrote that letter, Mr. Holland. You see, the
paper gave large extracts from the book. I did not come to my
conclusion from what the newspaper article said, but from what you
had said in your book--from the quoted passages."
"They did not do me justice. I did not look for justice at their hands.
But you, Phyllis----"
"I have read your book now, Mr. Holland----"
"Ah, let me plead with you, Phyllis--not 'Mr. Holland,' I entreat of
you."
"And my first thought on reading it was that I had not written to you so
strongly as I should have done."
"My dear Phyllis, do not say that, I beg of you. You cannot know how
you pain me."
"To be misunderstood by you--you."
She got upon her feet so quickly that it might almost be said she sprang

up.
"You must have misunderstood me greatly, Mr. Holland, if you fancied
that you could write such a book as you wrote and not get such a letter
from me. The Bible--Ruth--and you a clergyman--reading it daily in the
church----Oh! I cannot tell you all that I thought--all that I still think."
He did not correct the mistake she had made. She had no right to accuse
him of reading the Bible daily in his church. He was not in the habit of
doing that--it was his curates who did it. He watched her as she stood at
a window with her back turned to him. Her hands were behind her. Her
breath came audibly, for she had spoken excitedly.
Then he also rose and came beside her.
"I wrote that book, as I believed you would perceive when you had read
it, in order to remove from the minds of the people--those people who
have not given the matter a thought--the impression--I know it
prevails--that our faith--the truth of our religion--is dependent upon the
acceptance as good of such persons as our very religion itself enables
us to pronounce evil. My aim was to show that our faith is not built
upon such a foundation of impurity--of imperfection. The spirit which
prevails nowadays--the modern spirit--it is the result of the
development of science. This scientific spirit necessitates the
consideration of all the elements of our faith from the standpoint of
reason."
"Faith--reason?"
"If the Church is to appeal to all men, its method must be scientific. It
is sad to think of all that the Church has lost in the past through the
want of wisdom of those who had its best interests at heart, and
believed they were doing it good service by opposing scientific
research. They fancied that the faith would not survive the light of truth.
They professed to believe that the faith was strong enough to work
miracles--to change the heart of man, and yet that it would be
jeopardized by the calculations of astronomers. The astronomers were
prohibited from calculating; the geologists were forbidden to unearth

the mysteries of their science, lest the discovery of the truth should be
detrimental to the faith. They believed that the truth was opposed to the
faith. Warning after warning the Church received that the two were one;
that man would only accept the truth, whether it came from the lips of
the churchman or from the investigations of science. Grudgingly the
Church became tolerant of the seekers after truth--men who were not
greatly concerned in the preservation of the mummy dust of dogma.
But how many thousand persons are there not, to-day, who think that
the Church is on one side, and the truth on the other? The intolerant
attitude of the Church, still maintained in these days, when the spirit of
science pervades every form of thought, has been productive of
probably the largest body that ever existed in the country, of sensible
men and women, who never enter a church door. They want to know
whatsoever things are true; they do not want to be dredged with the
mummy dust of dogma."
"But the Bible--the Bible!"
"It is necessary for me to tell you all that I feel on this subject; all that I
have felt for several years past--ever since I left the divinity school
behind me, and went into the world of thinking men and women. It is
necessary to tell these men and women in unmistakable language that
our faith aims at a perfect type of manhood--at the perfection of truth. It
is necessary to tell them that we do not regard, except with