The Inside of the Cup | Page 6

nobleman's castle;
and kings would still be kings by divine decree, scientists--if there were
any-- workers in the black art, and every phenomenon we failed to
understand, a miracle."
"I choose the United States of America," ejaculated Evelyn.
"I gather, George," said Phil Goodrich, "that you don't believe in
miracles."
"Miracles are becoming suspiciously fewer and fewer. Once, an eclipse
of the sun was enough to throw men on their knees because they
thought it supernatural. If they were logical they'd kneel today because
it has been found natural. Only the inexplicable phenomena are
miracles; and after a while--if the theologians will only permit us to
finish the job-- there won't be any inexplicable phenomena. Mystery, as
I believe William James puts it may be called the more-to-be-known."
"In taking that attitude, George, aren't you limiting the power of God?"
said Mrs. Waring.
"How does it limit the power of God, mother," her son-in-law asked,
"to discover that he chooses to work by laws? The most suicidal
tendency in religious bodies today is their mediaeval insistence on what
they are pleased to call the supernatural. Which is the more

marvellous--that God can stop the earth and make the sun appear to
stand still, or that he can construct a universe of untold millions of suns
with planets and satellites, each moving in its orbit, according to law; a
universe wherein every atom is true to a sovereign conception? And yet
this marvel of marvels--that makes God in the twentieth century
infinitely greater than in the sixteenth--would never have been
discovered if the champions of theology had had their way."
Mrs. Waring smiled a little.
"You are too strong for me, George," she said, "but you mustn't expect
an old woman to change."
"Mother, dear," cried Eleanor, rising and laying her hand on Mrs.
Waring's cheek, "we don't want you to change. It's ourselves we wish to
change, we wish for a religious faith like yours, only the same teaching
which gave it to you is powerless for us. That's our trouble. We have
only to look at you," she added, a little wistfully, "to be sure there is
something--something vital in Christianity, if we could only get at it,
something that does not depend upon what we have been led to believe
is indispensable. George, and men like him, can only show the
weakness in the old supports. I don't mean that they aren't doing the
world a service in revealing errors, but they cannot reconstruct."
"That is the clergyman's business," declared Mr. Bridges. "But he must
first acknowledge that the old supports are worthless."
"Well," said Phil, "I like your rector, in spite of his anthropomorphism
--perhaps, as George would say, because of it. There is something
manly about him that appeals to me."
There," cried Eleanor, triumphantly, "I've always said Mr. Hodder had
a spiritual personality. You feel--you feel there is truth shut up inside of
him which he cannot communicate. I'll tell you who impresses me in
that way more strongly than any one else--Mr. Bentley. And he doesn't
come to church any more."
"Mr. Bentley," said her, mother, "is a saint. Your father tried to get him

to dinner to-day, but he had promised those working girls of his, who
live on the upper floors of his house, to dine with them. One of them
told me so. Of course he will never speak of his kindnesses."
"Mr. Bentley doesn't bother his head about theology," said Sally. "He
just lives."
"There's Eldon Parr," suggested George Bridges, mentioning the name
of the city's famous financier; "I'm told he relieved Mr. Bentley of his
property some twenty-five years ago. If Mr. Hodder should begin to
preach the modern heresy which you desire, Mr Parr might object. He's
very orthodox, I'm told."
"And Mr. Parr," remarked the modern Evelyn, sententiously, "pays the
bills, at St. John's. Doesn't he, father?"
"I fear he pays a large proportion of them," Mr. Waring admitted, in a
serious tone.
"In these days," said Evelyn, "the man who pays the bills is entitled to
have his religion as he likes it."
"No matter how he got the money to pay them," added Phil.
"That suggests another little hitch in the modern church which will
have to be straightened out," said George Bridges.
"'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean
the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of
extortion and excess.'"
"Why, George, you of all people quoting the Bible!" Eleanor
exclaimed.
"And quoting it aptly, too," said Phil Goodrich.
"I'm afraid if we began on the scribes and Pharisees, we shouldn't stop
with Mr. Parr," Asa Wiring observed, with a touch of sadness.

"In spite of all they say he has done, I can't help feeling