Man reasons and seeks human counsel; but woman obeys her instincts. Carmen did this and more. Her life had been one of utter freedom from dependence upon human judgment. The burden of decision as to the wisdom of a course of action rested always upon her own thought. Never did she seek to make a fellow-being her conscience. When the day of judgment came, the hour of trial or vital demand, it found her standing boldly, because her love was made perfect, not through instinct alone, but through conformity with the certain knowledge that he who lacks wisdom may find it in the right thought of God and man. And so, when on the next day she joined Hitt and Haynerd in the office of the Social Era, and learned that Carlson had met their terms, eagerly, and had transferred to them the moribund Express, she had no qualms as to the wisdom of the step which they were taking.

But not so her companions. Haynerd was a composite picture of doubt and fear, as he sat humped up in his chair. Hitt was serious to the point of gloom, reflecting in a measure his companion’s dismal forebodings.

“I was scared to death for fear he wouldn’t sell,” Haynerd was saying as the girl entered; “and I was paralyzed whenever I thought that he would.”

Carmen laughed aloud when she heard these words. “Do you know,” she said, “you remind me of Lot’s wife. She was told to go ahead, along the right course. But she looked back––alas for her! Now you two being started right are looking back; and you are about to turn to salt tears!

“Now listen,” she continued, as Haynerd began to remonstrate; “don’t voice a single fear to me! You couldn’t make me believe them true even if you argued for weeks––and we 86 have no time for such foolishness now. The first thing that you have got to do, Ned, is to start a little cemetery. In it you must bury your fears, right away, and without any mourning. Put up little headstones, if you wish; but don’t ever go near the place afterward, excepting to plant the insults, and gibes, and denouncements, and vilifications which the human mind will hurl at you, once the Express starts out on its new career. Good is bound to stir up evil; and the Express is now in the business of good. Remember, the first thing the Apostles always did was to be afraid. And they kept Jesus busy pointing out the nothingness of their fears.”

“Business of good!” retorted Haynerd savagely. “I guess we’ll find ourselves a bit lonely in it, too!”

“True, humanly speaking,” replied the girl, taking a chair beside him. “But, Ned, let me tell you of the most startling thing I have found in this great, new country. It is this: you Americans have, oh, so much animal courage––and so little true moral courage! You know that the press is one of the most corrupt institutions in America, don’t you? The truth is not in it. Going into thousands of homes every day, it is a deadlier menace than yellow fever. You know that it is muzzled by so-called religious bodies, by liquor interests, by vice-politicians, by commercialism, and its own craven cowardice. And yet, Ned, despite your heart-longing, you dare not face the world and stand boldly for righteousness in the conduct of the Express!

“Now,” she went on hurriedly, “let me tell you more. While you have been debating with your fears as you awaited Mr. Carlson’s decision, I have been busy. If I had allowed my mentality to become filled with fear and worry, as you have done, I would have had no room for real, constructive thought. But I first thanked God for this grand opportunity to witness to Him; and then I put out every mental suggestion of failure, of malicious enmity from the world, and from those who think they do not love us, and with it every subtle argument about the unpreparedness of the human mind for good. After that I set out to visit various newspaper offices in the city. I have talked with four managing and city editors since yesterday noon. I have their viewpoints now, and know what motives animate them. I know what they think. I know, in part, what the Express will have to meet––and how to meet it.”

Both men stared at her in blank amazement. Haynerd’s jaw dropped as he gazed. He had had a long apprenticeship in the newspaper field, but never would he have dared attempt what this fearless girl had just done.

“I have found out what news is,” Carmen resumed. “It is 87 wholly a human invention! It is the published vagaries of the carnal mind. In the yellow journal it is the red-inked, screaming report of the tragedies of sin. I asked Mr. Fallom if he knew anything about mental laws, and the terrible results of mental suggestion in his paper’s almost hourly heralding of murder, theft, and lust. But he only laughed and said that the lurid reports of crime tended to keep people alive to what was going on about them. He couldn’t see that he was making a terrible reality of every sort of evil, and holding it so constantly before an ignorant, credulous world’s eyes that little else could be seen. The moral significance of his so-called news reports had no meaning whatsoever for him!”

“Did you go to see Adams?” asked Haynerd, not believing that she would have dared visit that journalistic demon.

“Yes,” answered the girl, to his utter astonishment. “Mr. Adams said he had no time for maudlin sentimentalism or petticoat sophistry. He was in the business of collecting and disseminating news, and he wanted that news to go shrieking out of his office! Here is one of his afternoon extras. You can see how the report of an Italian wife-murder shrieks in red letters an inch high on the very first page. But has Mr. Adams thereby seen and met his opportunity? Or has he further prostituted journalism by this ignorant act?”

“The people want it, Carmen,” said Hitt slowly, though his voice seemed not to sound a real conviction.

“They do not!” cried Carmen, her eyes snapping. “If the church and the press were not mortally and morally blind, they would see the deadly destruction which they are accomplishing by shrieking from pulpit and sanctum: ‘Evil is real! Pietro Lasanni cuts his wife’s throat! Evil is real! Look, and be convinced!’”

“But, Carmen, while what you say is doubtless true, it must be admitted that the average man, especially the day laborer, reads his yellow journal avidly, and––”

“Yes, he does,” returned the girl. “And why? The average man, as you call him, is a victim of the most pernicious social system ever devised by the human mind! Swept along in the mad rush of commercialism, or ground down beneath its ruthless wheels, his jaded, jarred nerves and his tired mind cry out for artificial stimulation, for something that will for a moment divert his wearied thought from his hopeless situation. The Church offers him little that is tangible this side of the grave. But whiskey, drugs, and yellow journalism do. Can’t you see, Mr. Hitt––can’t you, Ned––that the world’s cry for sensationalism is but a cry for something that will make it forget its misery for a brief moment? The average man feels 88 the superficiality of the high speed of this century of mad rush; he longs as never before for a foundation of truth upon which to rest; he is tired of theological fairy-tales; he is desperately tired of sin, and sickness, and dying. He cares little about a promised life beyond the grave. He wants help here and now to solve his problems. What does the press offer him? Little beyond a recount of his own daily miseries, and reports of graft and greed, and accounts of vulgar displays of material wealth that he has not and can not have. And these reports divert his jaded mind for a moment and give him a false, fleeting sense of pleasure––and then leave him sunk deeper than before in despair, and in hatred of existing conditions!”

“The girl is right,” said Hitt, turning to Haynerd. “And we knew it, of course. But we have let our confidence slip. This steam-calliope age reflects the human-mind struggle for something other than its own unsatisfying ideas. It turns to thrills; it expresses its restlessness and dissatisfaction with itself by futurist and cubist art, so-called; by the rattle and vibration of machinery; by flaring billboards that insult every sense of the artistic; and by the murk and muck of yellow journalism, with its hideous colored supplements and spine-thrilling tales. So much for the reader. But the publisher himself––well, he battens materially, of course, upon the tired victims of our degrading social system. He sees but the sordid revenue in dollars and cents. Beyond that his morals do not extend.”

“And they can’t,” said Haynerd. “Decent journalism wouldn’t pay––doesn’t––never did! Other papers have tried it, and miserably failed!”

“Then,” returned Hitt calmly, after a moment’s reflection, “oil will meet the deficit. As long as my paternal wells flow in Ohio the Express will issue forth as a clean paper, a dignified, law-supporting purveyor to a taste for better things––even if it has to create that taste. Its columns will be closed to salacious sensation, and its advertising pages will be barred to vice, liquor, tobacco, and drugs.”

“Good!” cried Carmen. “And now we’ve got to get right down to business.”

“Just so,” said Hitt, rising. “It is my intention to issue the Express one more week on its present basis, and then turn it into a penny morning daily. I have seen and talked with its staff. They’re good men. I’m going to assume the management myself, with you, Carmen, as my first assistant. Haynerd will become city editor. Now, what suggestions have you?”

“Oh, lots!” cried the girl enthusiastically. “But, first, how far may I go?”

“The limit,” replied Hitt, rubbing his hands together. “You are my brain, so to speak, henceforth. As to financial resources, I am prepared to dump a hundred thousand dollars right into the Express before a cent of revenue comes back.”

“Another question, then: will you issue a Sunday edition?” she asked.

“For a while, yes,” he said. “We’ll see how it works, for I have some ideas to try out.”

“Well, then,” resumed the girl eagerly, “I want this paper to be for all the people; to be independent in the truest sense of the term; and to be absolutely beyond the influence of political and religious sectarianism––you’ll soon enough learn what that will cost you––to be an active, constructive force in this great city, and a patient, tireless, loving educator.”

“Humph!” grunted Haynerd, although he was listening very carefully.

“The Express will succeed,” the girl went on, without noticing him, “because our thought regarding it is successful. We have already succeeded; and that success will be externalized in our work. It makes no difference what the people may think of us; but it makes a lot of difference what we think of them and ourselves. Now, our program is unlimited. We assume superiority over adverse conditions, and we claim success, because we know that these things are mental, and that they are divinely ours. Lot’s wife didn’t have the sort of confidence that wins––she looked back. Our bridges are burnt behind us now. But there is no doubt of the outcome. And so there is no doubt lurking in us to take the edge off our efforts, is there? The thought regarding the Express has not been timidly born within us; it has come forth flashing vigor! Yes it has, Ned, despite your doubts! And we have within us a power mightier than any force outside of us. That is the knowledge of infinite mind’s omnipotence, and our ability to use the Christ-principle to meet every problem. Is it not so?”

Haynerd began to rouse up with a returning sense of confidence. Hitt smiled and nodded to Carmen. The girl went on rapidly and eagerly:

“We are going to give the people news from a new standpoint, aren’t we? We are not going on the assumption that the report of mankind’s errors is the report of real news. The only thing that is really new is good. We’ll report that. When I was in Mr. Adams’s office two items came in over the ’phone. One was the report of a jewel robbery, and the other was an announcement of the draining by the Government of submerged lands in Louisiana, so as to give an additional opportunity to those seeking farms. Which item did Mr. Adams put 90 in bold type on the front page? The first, yes. I was unable to locate the latter anywhere in the paper, although it was a timely bit of news.”

“Very true,” replied Hitt.

“Now another thing,” continued the girl, “I want the Sunday edition of the Express to contain a rÉsumÉ of the important and vital news of the week, with the very clearest, most impartial and enlightening editorial comment upon it. This calls for nice discrimination in the selection of those items for our comment. It means, however, the best practical education for the people. This was John Ruskin’s idea, and certainly is a splendid one. Still another thing, the Express will stand shoulder to shoulder with the women for equal suffrage. Are you agreed?”

“Most emphatically!” declared Hitt. “It is the women who will clean up and regenerate this world, not the men. Reform is now in the hands of the women. They have been held back long enough. And India proves that backward women mean a backward nation.”

“Then,” continued Carmen, “make a distinct Women’s Department in the Express, and put Miss Wall on the staff.”

“Very well. Next?” inquired Hitt, smiling.

“A daily educational department for foreigners, our immigrants, giving them every possible aid in suggestions regarding their naturalization, the languages, hotels, boarding houses, employment, and so on.”

“Done,” said Hitt. “And what else?”

“The Express is going to maintain a social service, and night schools. It is going to establish vacation and permanent homes for girls. It is going to provide for vocational training. It is going to establish a lecture bureau––for lectures on good. It is going to build a model city for workingmen. Then it is going to found a model city for everybody. It is going to establish clubs and meeting places for workingmen, places where they may meet, and play games, and read, and have social intercourse, and practical instruction. It is going to establish the same for young boys. It is going to take the lead for civic betterment in this city, and for child-welfare, and for––”

By this time Haynerd was sitting erect and staring in bewilderment at the girl. “What do you mean?” he sputtered. “Aren’t you wandering somewhat beyond strict newspaper limits? We are in the news business!”

“And haven’t I told you,” returned the girl promptly, “that the only thing new in this world is good? Our news is going to be good news––the collection and dissemination of good to all mankind. People who read our paper will no longer feel 91 that it is dangerous to be alive, but a glorious privilege. I am simply laying out our program. And Mr. Hitt said I could go the limit, you know.”

Hitt had caught the girl’s infectious enthusiasm, and his face was beaming.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed. “It’s your unlimited thought, Carmen, that we old dry-bones want! I understand you!”

“Of course you do!” she cried. “And so does dear old protesting Ned. Why, what is money? What is anything in this life, compared with real service to our fellow-men? The Express is not in business to make money! It is in the business of collecting and scattering the news of good. Its dividends will be the happiness and joy it gives to mankind. Will it fail? It simply can’t! For good is the greatest success there is!”

It is likely that Hitt did not catch the full meaning of the girl’s words; and it is certain that Haynerd did not. But her boundless enthusiasm did penetrate in large degree into their souls, and they ceased to insist on the query, Will it pay? The broader outlook was already beginning to return profits to these men, as the newer definition of ‘news’ occupied their thought. Fear and doubt fled. Seizing their hats, they bade Carmen go with them to inspect the plant of the Express, and meet its staff.

“There’s a question I’d like to ask,” said Haynerd, as they pursued their way toward their recent purchase. “I want to know what our editorial policy will be. Do we condone the offenses of our grafters and spoilsmen by remaining silent regarding their crimes? Or do we expose them?”

“We will let their guilt expose and kill itself,” quickly returned Carmen. “How? Well, you will see.”

A few minutes later they entered the gloomy, dust-laden offices of the Express. Hitt’s spirits sank again as he looked about him. But Carmen seemed to suffer no loss of enthusiasm. After a mental appraisal of the dingy, uninviting environment she exclaimed: “Well, one nice thing about this is that we don’t have much to start with!”

Hitt reflected upon her cryptical remark, and then laughed.

Carlson joined them at this juncture. It was evident that the sale of his plant had removed a heavy load from his shoulders.

“My best reporter was out yesterday when you called,” he said, addressing Hitt. “He––well, he was a little the worse for wear. But he’s in now. Come into my office and I’ll send for him.”

In a few minutes a tall, boyish fellow responded to the 92 editor’s summons. He must have been well under twenty, thought Hitt, marveling that so young a man should be regarded as Carlson’s best news gatherer. But his wonder grew apace when the editor introduced him as Mr. Sidney Ames.

“Huh!” ejaculated Haynerd. “Know J. Wilton?”

The lad smiled pallidly, as he bent his gaze upon Carmen, and addressed his reply to her. “My governor,” he said laconically.

“The deuce he is!” returned Haynerd, beginning to bristle.

Carlson dismissed the reporter, and turned to the curious group.

“The boy has the making of a fine newspaper man in him. Has something of his father’s terrible energy. But he’s doomed. Whiskey and morphine got him. He used to come down here before his father threw him out. I let him write little articles for the Express when he was barely sixteen years old; and they were mighty good, too. But he got mixed up in some scandal, and J. Wilton cut him off. The boy always did drink, I guess. But since his family troubles he’s been on the straight road to the insane asylum. It’s too bad. But you’ll keep him, I suppose?”

“Certainly not!” replied Haynerd aggressively. “His father is no friend of mine, and––”

“We shall keep him,” calmly interrupted Carmen. “His father is a very good friend of mine.”

Carlson looked from one to the other quizzically. “H’m!” he mused. “Well,” squinting over his glasses at the girl, “this surely is woman’s era, isn’t it?”

A week later the Express, scarcely recognizable in its clean, fresh type and modest headlines, with its crisp news and well written editorials, very unostentatiously made its entry into the already crowded metropolitan field. Few noticed it. Adams picked it up and laughed, a short, contemptuous laugh. Fallom glanced over it and wondered. J. Wilton Ames, who had been apprised of its advent, threw it into the waste basket––and then drew it out again. He re-read the editorial announcing the policy of the paper. From that he began a careful survey of the whole sheet. His eye caught an article on the feminist movement, signed by Carmen Ariza. His lip curled, but he read the article through, and finished with the mental comment that it was well written. Then he summoned Willett.

“I want this sheet carefully watched,” he commanded, tossing the paper to his secretary. “If anything is noticed that in any way refers to me or my interests, call my attention to it immediately.”

The secretary bowed and departed. A moment afterward Henry Claus, nominal head of the great Claus brewing interests, was ushered in.

“We licked ’em, Mr. Ames, we licked ’em!” cried the newcomer, rushing forward and clasping the financier’s hand. “The city council last night voted against the neighborhood saloon license bill! Lined up solidly for us! Fine, eh?”

“Yes,” commented the laconic Ames. “Our aldermen are a very intelligent lot of statesmen, Claus. They’re wise enough to see that their jobs depend upon whiskey. It requires very astute statesmanship, Claus, to see that. But some of our congressmen and senators have learned the same thing.”

The brewer pondered this delphic utterance and scratched his head.

“Well,” continued Ames, “have you your report?”

“Eh? Yes, sure, Mr. Ames. Here.”

Ames studied the document. Then he looked severely at Claus. “Sales less than last month,” he remarked dryly.

“It’s the local option law what done it, Mr. Ames,” replied the brewer apologetically. “Them women––”

“Bah! Let a few petticoats whip you, eh? But, anyway, you don’t know how to market your stuff. Look here, Claus, you’ve got to encourage the young people more. We’ve got to get the girls and boys. If we get the girls, we’ll get the boys easily enough. It’s the same in the liquor business as in certain others, Claus, you’ve got to land them young.”

“But, Mr. Ames, I can’t take ’em and pour it down their throats!” expostulated the brewer.

“You could if you knew how,” returned Ames. “Why, man! if I had nothing else to do I’d just like to devote myself to the sales end of the brewing business. I’d use mental suggestion in such a way through advertising that this country would drown in beer! Beer is just plain beer to you dull-wits. But suppose we convinced people that it was a food, eh? Advertise a chemical analysis of it, showing that it has greater nutriment than beef. Catch the clerks and poor stenographers that way. Don’t call it beer; call it Maltdiet, or something like that. Why, we couldn’t begin to supply the demand!”

“How would you advertise, Mr. Ames?”

“Billboards in every field and along all railroads and highways; boards in every vacant lot in every town and city in the country; electric signs everywhere; handbills; lectures––never thought of that, did you? And samples––why, I’d put samples into every house in the Union! I’d give away a million barrels of beer––and sell a hundred million as a result! But I’d work particularly with the young people. Work on them with literature 94 and suggestion; they’re more receptive than adults. The hypnotism that works through suggestive advertising, Claus, is simply omnipotent! How about your newspaper contracts?”

“We have all the papers, excepting the Express, Mr. Ames.”

“The Express?” Ames laughed. “Well, that’s a new venture. You can afford to pass it up. It’s run by a college professor and a doll-faced girl.”

“But, Mr. Ames, our advertising manager tells me that the publishers of the Express called a meeting of the managers of all the other city papers, to discuss cutting out liquor advertising, and that since then the rates have gone up, way up! You see, the example set by the Express may––”

“Humph!” grunted Ames. Then he began to reflect. An example, backed by absolute fearlessness––and he knew from experience that the publishers of the Express were without fear––well, it could not be wholly ignored, even if the new paper had no circulation worth the name.

“Mr. Ames,” resumed the brewer, “the Express is in every newsstand in the city. All the boys are selling it. It’s in every hotel, in every saloon, in every store and business house here. It’s in the dives. It isn’t sold, it’s given away! Where do they get their money?”

Ames himself wondered. And he determined to find out.

“Leave it to me, Claus,” he said at length, dismissing the brewer. “I’ll send for you in a day or so.”

It was well after midnight when the little group assembled in the dining room of the Beaubien cottage to resume their interrupted discussions. Hitt and Haynerd were the last to arrive. They found Doctor Morton eagerly awaiting them. With him had come, not without some reluctance, his prickly disputant, Reverend Patterson Moore, and another friend and colleague, Doctor Siler, whose interest in these unique gatherings had been aroused by Morton.

“I’ve tried to give him a rÉsumÉ of our previous deductions,” the latter explained, as Hitt prepared to open the discussion. “And he says he has conscientious scruples––if you know what that means.”

“He’s a Philistine, that’s all, eh?” offered Haynerd.

Doctor Siler nodded genially. “I am like my friend, Reverend Edward Hull, who says––”

“There!” interrupted Morton. “Your friend has a life job molding the plastic minds of prospective preachers, and he doesn’t want to lose the sinecure. I don’t blame him. Got a wife and babies depending on him. He still preaches hell-fire and the resurrection of the flesh, doesn’t he? Well, in that case 95 we can dispense with his views, for we’ve sent that sort of doctrine to the ash heap.”

Reverend Moore opened his mouth as if to protest; but Hitt prevented him by taking the floor and plunging at once into his subject. “The hour is very late,” he said in apology, “and we have much ground to cover. Who knows when we shall meet again?”

Carmen stole a hand beneath the table and grasped the Beaubien’s. Then all waited expectantly.

“As I sat in my office this morning,” began Hitt meditatively, “I looked often and long through the window and out over this great, roaring city. Everywhere I saw tremendous activity, frantic hurry, and nerve-racking strife. In the distance I marked the smoke curling upward from huge factories, packing houses, and elevators. The incessant seething, the rush and bustle, the noise, the heat, and dust, all spelled business, an enormous volume of human business––and yet, not one iota of it contributed even a mite to the spiritual nature and needs of mankind!

“I pondered this long. And then I looked down, far down, into the streets below. There I saw the same diversified activity. And I saw, too, men and women, rich and comfortable, riding along happily in their automobiles, with not a thought beyond their physical well-being. But, I asked myself, should they not ride thus, if they wish? And yet, the hour will soon come when sickness, disaster, and death will knock at their doors and sternly bid them come out. And then?”

“Just what I have sought to impress upon you whenever you advanced your philosophical theories, Doctor,” said Reverend Moore, turning to Morton. The doctor glowered back at him without reply. Hitt smiled and went on.

“Now what should the man in the automobile do? Is there anything he can do, after all? Yes, much, I think. Jesus told such as he to seek first the kingdom of harmony––a demonstrable understanding of truth. The automobile riding would follow after that, and with safety. Why, oh, why, will we go on wasting our precious time acquiring additional physical sensations in motor cars, amusement parks, travel, anywhere and everywhere, instead of laboring first to acquire that real knowledge which alone will set us free from the bitter woes of human existence!”

“Jesus set us free, sir,” interposed Reverend Moore sternly. “And his vicarious atonement opens the door of immortality to all who believe on his name.”

“But that freedom, Mr. Moore, you believe will be acquired only after death. I dispute that belief strenuously. But let us 96 return to that later. At present we see mankind laboring for that which even they themselves admit is not meat. They waste their substance for what is not bread. And why? Because of their false beliefs of God and man, externalized in a viciously cruel social system; because of their dependence upon the false supports of materia medica, orthodox theology, man-devised creeds, and human opinions. Is it not demonstrably so?

“And yet, who hath believed our report? Who wants to? Alas! men in our day think and read little that is serious; and they reflect hardly at all upon the vital things of life. They want to be let alone in their comfortable materialistic beliefs, even though those beliefs rend them, rive them, rack and twist them with vile, loathsome disease, and then sink them into hideous, worm-infested graves! The human mind does not want its undemonstrable beliefs challenged. It does not want the light of unbiased investigation thrown upon the views which it has accepted ready-made from doctor and theologian. Again, why? Because, my friends, the human mind is inert, despite its seemingly tremendous material activity. And its inertia is the result of its own self-mesmerism, its own servile submission to beliefs which, as Balfour has shown, have grown up under every kind of influence except that of genuine evidence. Chief of these are the prevalent religious beliefs, which we are asked to receive as divinely inspired.”

Doctor Morton glanced at Reverend Moore and grinned. But that gentleman sat stolid, with arms folded and a scowl upon his sharp features.

“Religion,” continued Hitt, “is that which binds us to the real. Alas! what a farce mankind have made of it. And why? Because, in its mad desire to make matter real and to extract all pleasures from it, the human mind has tried to eliminate the soul.”

“We have been having a bad spell of materialism, that’s true,” interposed Doctor Morton. “But we are progressing, I hope.”

“Well,” Hitt replied, “perhaps so. Yet almost in our own day France put God out of her institutions; set up and crowned a prostitute as the goddess of reason; and trailed the Bible through the streets of Paris, tied to the tail of an ass! What followed? Spiritual destitution. And in this country we have enthroned so-called physical science, and, as Comte predicted, are about to conduct God to the frontier and bow Him out with thanks for His provisional services. With what result? As our droll philosopher, Hubbard, has said, ‘Once man was a spirit, now he is matter. Once he was a flame, now he is a candlestick. 97 Once he was a son of God, now he is a chemical formula. Once he was an angel, now he is plain mud.’”

“But,” exclaimed Reverend Moore, visibly nettled, “that is because of his falling away from the Church––”

“My friend,” said Hitt calmly, “he fell away from the Church because he could not stagnate longer with her and be happy. Orthodox theology has largely become mere sentimentalism. The average man has a horror of being considered a namby-pamby, religiously weak, wishy-washy, so-called Christian. It makes him ashamed of himself to stand up in a congregation and sing ‘My Jesus, I love Thee,’ and ‘In mansions of glory and endless delight.’ What does he know about Jesus? And he is far more concerned about his little brick bungalow and next month’s rent than he is about celestial mansions. And I don’t blame him. No; he leaves religion to women, whom he regards as the weaker sex. He turns to the ephemeral wisdom of human science––and, poor fool! remains no wiser than before. And the women? Well, how often nowadays do you hear the name of God on their lips? Is He discussed in society? Is He ever the topic of conversation at receptions and balls? No; that person was right who said that religion ‘does not rise to the height of successful gossip.’ It stands no show with the latest cabaret dance, the slashed skirt, and the daringly salacious drama as a theme of discourse. Oh, yes, we still maintain our innumerable churches. And, though religion is the most vital thing in the world to us, we hire a preacher to talk to us once a week about it! Would we hire men to talk once a week to us about business? Hardly! But religion is far, far less important to human thought than business––for the latter means automobiles and increased opportunities for physical sensation.”

“Well, Mr. Hitt,” objected Doctor Siler, “I am sure this is not such a godless era as you would make out.”

“No,” returned Hitt. “We have many gods, chief of whom is matter. The world’s acknowledged god is not spirit, despite the inescapable fact that the motive-power of the universe is spiritual, and the only action is the expression of thought.

“But now,” he continued, “we have in our previous discussions made some startling deductions, and we came to the conclusion that there is a First Cause, and that it is infinite mind. But, having agreed upon that, are we now ready to admit the logical corollary, namely, that there can be but one real mind? For that follows from the premise that there is but one God who is infinite.”

“Then we do not have individual minds?” queried Miss Wall.

“We have but the one mind, God,” he replied. “There are not minds many. The real man reflects God. Human men reflect the communal mortal mind, which is the suppositional opposite of the divine mind that is God. I repeat, the so-called human mind knows not God. It never sees even His manifestations. It sees only its own interpretations of Him and His manifestations. And these it sees as mental concepts. For all things are mental. Could anything be plainer?”

“Well, they might be,” suggested Doctor Siler.

Hitt laughed. “Well then,” he said, “if you will not admit that all things are mental––including the entire universe––you certainly are forced to admit that your comprehension of things is mental.”

“Agreed,” returned the doctor.

“Then you will likewise have to admit that you are not concerned with things, but with your comprehension of things.”

“H’m, well––yes.”

“And so, after all, you deal only with mental things––and everything is mental to you.”

“But––whence the human mind? Did God create it?” continued Doctor Siler. “Did He, Mr. Moore?”

“The Bible states clearly that He created all things,” returned that gentleman a little stiffly.

“My friends,” resumed Hitt very earnestly, “we are on the eve of a tremendous enlightenment, I believe. And for that we owe much to the so-called ‘theory of suppositional opposites.’ We have settled to our satisfaction that, although mankind believe themselves to be dependent upon air, food, and water for existence, nevertheless they are really dependent upon something vastly finer, which is back of those things. That ‘something’ we call God, for it is good. Matthew Arnold said that the only thing that can be verified about God is that He is ‘the eternal power that makes for righteousness.’ Very well, we are almost willing to accept that alone––for that carries infinite implications. It makes God an eternal, spiritual power, omnipotent as an influence for good. It makes Him the infinite patron, so to speak, of right-thinking. And we know that thought is creative. So it makes Him the sole creative force.

“But,” he continued, “force, or power, is not material. God by very necessity is mind, including all intelligence. And His operations are conducted according to the spiritual law of evolution. Oh, yes, evolution is not a theory, it is a fact. God, infinite mind, evolves, uncovers, reveals, unfolds, His numberless eternal ideas. These reflect and manifest Him. The greatest of these is the one that includes all others and expresses and reflects Him perfectly. That we call man. That 99 is the man who was ‘made’––revealed, manifested––in His image and likeness. There is no other image and likeness of God. Moreover, God has always existed, and always will. So His ideas, including real man, have had no beginning. They were not created, as we regard creation, but have been unfolded.

“All well and good, so far. But now we come to the peculiar part, namely, the fact that reality seems always to have its shadow in unreality. Every positive seems to have a negative. The magnet has its opposite poles, one positive, the other negative. Jesus had his Nero. Truth has its opposing falsities. At the lowest ebb of the world’s morals appeared the Christ. The Christian religion springs from the soil of a Roman Emperor’s blood-soaked gardens. And so it goes. Harmony opposed by discord. Errors hampering the solving of mathematical problems. Spirit opposed by matter. Which is real? That which stands the test of demonstration as to permanence, I say with Spencer.

“And now we learn that it is the communal mortal mind that stands as the opposite and negative of the infinite mind that is God, and that it is but a supposition, without basis of real principle or fact. It has its law of evolution, too, and evolves its types in human beings and animals, in mountain, tree, and stream. All material nature, in fact, is but the manifestation, or reflection, of this communal mortal mind.

“But, though God had no beginning, and will have no ending, this communal mortal mind, on the contrary, did have a seeming beginning, and will end its pseudo-existence. It seemingly began as a mental mist. It seemingly evolved form and became active. It seemingly evolved its universe, and its earth as its lower stratum. It made its firmament, and it gradually filled its seas with moving things that manifested its idea of life. Slowly, throughout inconceivable eons of time, it unrolled and evolved, until at last, through untold generations of stupid, sluggish, often revolting animal forms, it began to evolve a type of mind, a crude representation of the mind that is God, and manifesting its own concept of intelligence. That type was primitive man.

“Now what was this communal mortal mind doing? Counterfeiting divine mind, if I may so express it. Evolving crude imitative types. But types that were without basis of principle, and so they passed away––the higher forms died, the lower disintegrated. Aye, death came into the world because of sin, for the definition of sin is the Aramaic word which Jesus used, translated ‘hamartio,’ which means ‘missing the mark.’ The mortal mind missed the mark. And so its types died. And so they still die to-day. Yes, sin came through Adam, for Adam is the name of the communal mortal mind.

“Well, ages and ages passed, reckoned in the human mind concept of time. The evolution was continually toward a higher and ever higher type. Why? The influence of divine mind was penetrating it. Paleolithic man still died, because he did not have enough real knowledge in his mortal mind to keep him from missing the mark. He probably had no belief in a future life, for he did not bury his dead after the manner of those who later manifested this belief. But, after the lapse of centuries, Neolithic man was found manifesting such a belief. What has happened? This: the mortal mind was translating the divine idea of immortality into its own terms and thus expressing it.

“Ages rolled on. The curtain began to rise upon what we call human history. The idea of a power not itself began to filter through the mist of mortal mind, and human beings felt its influence, the influence that makes for righteousness. And then, at last, through the mortal mind there began to filter the idea of the one God. The people who best reflected this idea were the ancient Israelites. They called themselves the ‘chosen’ people. Their so-called minds were, as Carmen has expressed it, like window-panes that were a little cleaner than the others. They let a bit more of the light through. God is light, you know, according to the Scriptures. And little by little they began to record their thoughts regarding their concept of the one God. These writings became sacred to them. And soon they were seeing their God manifested everywhere, and hearing His voice in every sound of Nature. And as they saw, they wrote. And thus began that strange and mighty book, the Bible, the record of the evolution of the concept of God in the human mind.”

“Do you mean to say that the Bible was not given by inspiration?” demanded Reverend Moore.

“No,” replied Hitt. “This filtering process that I have been speaking about is inspiration. Every bit of truth that comes to you or me to-day comes by inspiration––the breathing in––of the infinite mind that is truth.

“And so,” he went on, “we have those reflections of the communal mortal mind which we call the Israelites recording their thoughts and ideas. Sometimes they recorded plain fact; sometimes they wrapped their moral teachings in allegories and fables. Josephus says of Moses that he wrote some things enigmatically, some allegorically, and the rest in plain words, since in his account of the first chapter of Genesis and the first three verses of the second he gives no hint of any mystery at all. But when he comes to the fourth verse of the second chapter he says Moses, after the seventh day was over, began 101 to talk philosophically, and so he understood the rest of the second and third chapters in some enigmatical and allegorical sense. Quite so, it appears to me, for the writer, whoever he was, was then attempting the impossible task of explaining the enigma of evil, the origin of which is associated always with the dust-man.”

“You deny the truth of the account of the creation as given in the second chapter of Genesis, do you?” asked Reverend Moore. “You deny that man was tempted and fell?”

“Well,” said Hitt, smiling, “of course there is no special reason for denying that serpents may have talked, millions and millions of years ago. In fact, they still have rudimentary organs of speech––as do most animals. Perhaps they all talked at one time. Snakes developed in the Silurian Era, some twenty million years ago. In the vast intervening stretch of time they may have lost their power to talk. But, as for the second chapter of Genesis, Moses may or may not have written it. Indeed, he may not have written the first. We do not know. The book of Genesis shows plainly that it is a composite of several books by various authors. I incline to the belief that some more materialistic hand and mind than Moses’s composed that second chapter. However that may be, it is a splendid example of the human mind’s crude attempt to interpret the spiritual creation in its own material terms. It in a way represents the dawning upon the human mind of the idea of the spiritual creation. For when finite sense approaches the infinite it must inevitably run into difficulties with which it can not cope; it must meet problems which it can not solve, owing to its lack of a knowledge of the infinite principle involved. That’s why the world rejected the first account of the creation and accepted the second, snake-story, dust-man, apple tree, and all.”

“Hitt!” exclaimed Haynerd, his eyes wide agape. “You’re like a story-book! Go on!”

“Wait!” interrupted Miss Wall. “We know that man appeared on this earth in comparatively recent times. For millions and millions of years before he was evolved animals and vegetables had been dying. Now was their death due to sin? If so, whose?”

“Assuredly,” returned Hitt. “Your difficulty arises from the fact that we are accustomed to associate sin with human personality. But remember, the physical universe has been evolved from the communal mortal mind. It represents ‘negative truth.’ It has been dying from the very beginning of its seeming existence, for its seeming existence alone is sin. The vegetables, the animals, and now the men, that have been evolved from it, and that express it and reflect and manifest 102 it, must die, necessarily, because the so-called mind from which they evolve is not based upon the eternal, immortal principle, God. And so it and they miss the mark, and always have done so. You must cease to say, Whose sin? Remember that the sin is inherent in the so-called mind that is expressed by things material. The absence of the principle which is God is sin, according to the Aramaic word, translated ‘hamartio,’ which Jesus used. The most lowly cell that swam in the primeval seas manifested the communal mortal mind’s sin, and died as a consequence.”

“In other words, it manifested a supposition, as opposed to truth?”

“Its existence was quite suppositional,” replied Hitt. “It did not manifest life, but a material sense of existence. The subjective always determines the objective. And so the communal mortal mind, so-called, determined these first lowly material and objective forms of existence. They were its phenomena, and they manifested it. Different types now manifest it, after long ages. But all are equally without basis of principle, all are subject to the mortal law that everything material contains within itself the elements for its own destruction, and all must pass away. In our day we are dealing with the highest type of mortal mind so far evolved, the human man. He, too, knows but one life, human life, the mortal-mind sense of existence. His human life is demonstrably only a series of states of material consciousness, states of thought-activity. The classification and placing of these states of consciousness give him his sense of time. The positing of his mental concepts give him his sense of space. His consciousness is a thought-activity, externalizing human opinions, ideas, and beliefs, not based on truth. This consciousness––or supposititious human mind––is very finite in nature, and so is essentially self-centered. It attributes its fleshly existence to material things. It believes that its life depends upon its fleshly body; and so it thinks itself in constant peril of losing it. It goes further, and believes that there are multitudes of other human minds, each having its own human, fleshly existence, or life, and each capable of doing it and one another mortal injury. It believes that it can be deprived by its neighboring mortal minds of all that it needs for its sustenance, and that it can improve its own status at their expense, and vice versa. It is filled with fears––not knowing that God is infinite good––and its fears become externalized as disaster, loss, calamity, disease, and death at last. Perhaps its chief characteristic is mutability. It has no basis of principle to rest upon, and so it constantly shifts and changes to accord with its own shifting thought. There is 103 nothing certain about it. It is here to-day, and gone to-morrow.”

“Pretty dismal state of affairs!” Haynerd was heard to mutter.

“Well, Ned,” said Hitt, “there is this hope: human consciousness always refers its states to something. And that ‘something’ is real. It is infinite mind, God, and its infinite manifestation. The human mind still translates or interprets God’s greatest idea, Man, as ‘a suffering, sinning, troubled creature,’ forgetting that this creature is only a mental concept, and that the human mind is looking only at its own thoughts, and that these thoughts are counterfeits of God’s real thoughts.

“Moreover, though the human mind is finite, and can not even begin to grasp the infinite, the divine mind has penetrated the mist of error. There is a spark of real reflection in every mortal. That spark can be made to grow into a flame that will consume all error and leave the real man revealed, a consciousness that knows no evil. There is now enough of a spark of intelligence in the human, so-called mind to enable it to lay hold on truth and grow out of itself. And there is no excuse for not doing so, as Jesus said. If he had not come we wouldn’t have known that we were missing the mark so terribly.”

“Well,” observed Haynerd, “after that classification I don’t see that we mortals have much to be puffed up about!”

“All human beings, or mortals, Ned,” said Hitt, “are interpretations by the mortal mind of infinite mind’s idea of itself, Man. These interpretations are made in the human mind, and they remain posited there. They differ from one another only in degree. All are false, and doomed to decay. How, then, can one mortal look down with superciliousness upon another, when all are in the same identical class?”

Carmen’s thoughts rested for a moment upon the meaningless existence of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, who had anchored her life in the shifting sands of the flesh and its ephemeral joys.

“Now,” resumed Hitt, “we will come back to the question of progress. What is progress but the growing of the human mind out of itself under the influence of the divine stimulus of demonstrable truth? And that is made possible when we grasp the stupendous fact that the human, mortal mind, including its man, is absolutely unreal and non-existent! The human man changes rapidly in mind, and, consequently, in its lower stratum, or expression, the body. For that reason he need not carry over into to-day the old, false beliefs which were manifested by him yesterday. If he leaves them in the past, they cease to be manifested in his present or future. Thus he 104 outgrows himself. Then, opening himself to truth, he lays off the ‘old man’ and puts on the ‘new.’ He denies himself––denies that there is any truth in the seeming reality of the mortal, material self––as Jesus bade us do.”

“He must make new thoughts, then?” said Miss Wall.

“No,” replied Hitt. “Thought is not manufactured. God is eternal mind. His ideas and the thoughts regarding them must always have existed. His thoughts are infinite in number. He, as mind, is an inexhaustible reservoir of thought. Now the human, mortal mind interprets His thoughts, and so seems to manufacture new thought. It makes new interpretations, but not new thoughts. When you hear people chatting, do you think they are manufacturing new thought? Not a bit of it! They are but reflecting, or voicing, the communal so-called mortal mind’s interpretations of God’s innumerable and real thoughts.”

“And so,” suggested Father Waite, “the more nearly correct our interpretations of His thoughts are, the nearer we approach to righteousness.”

“Just so,” returned Hitt. “There exist all sorts of real thoughts about God’s ideas. And these are good and eternal. But the human mind makes likewise all sorts of erroneous translations of them. We shall solve our problem of existence when we correctly interpret His thoughts, and use them only. When the human mentality becomes attuned or accustomed to certain thoughts, that kind flow into it readily from the communal mortal mind. Some people think for years along certain erroneous or criminal lines. Their minds are set in that direction, and invite such a flow of thought. But were they to reverse the ‘set,’ there would be a very different and better resulting externalization in health, prosperity, and morals.”

“I think I see,” said Miss Wall. “And I begin to glimpse the true mission of Jesus, and why he was ready to give up everything for it.”

“Yes. And now a word further about the so-called mortal mind. For, when we have collected and arranged all our data regarding it, we will find ourselves in a position to begin to work out of it, and thereby truly work out our salvation, even if with fear and trembling. I have said in a previous talk that, judging by the deductions of the physical scientists, everything seems about to leave the material basis and turn into vibrations, and ‘man changes with velocity’ of these. They tell us that all life depends upon water; that life began, eons ago, in the primeval sea. True, the human sense of existence, as I have said, began in the dark, primeval sea of mist, the deep and fluid mortal mind, so-called. And that sense of existence most 105 certainly is dependent upon the fluid of mortal mind. BichÂt has said that ‘life is the sum of the forces that resist death.’ Spencer has defined life as the ‘continuous adjustment of internal to external relations.’ Very good, as applied to the human sense of life. The human mind makes multitudes of mental concepts, and then struggles incessantly to adjust itself to them, and at length gives up the struggle, hopelessly beaten. Scientists tell us that life is due to a continuous series of bodily ferments. The body is in a constant state of ferment, and that gives rise to life. Good! We know that the human mind is in a state of incessant ferment. The human mind is a self-centered mass of writhing, seething, fermenting material thought. And that fermentation is outwardly manifested in its concept of body, and its material environment. The scientists themselves are rapidly pushing matter back into the realm of the human mind. Bodily states are becoming recognized as manifestations of mental states––not vice versa, as has been ignorantly believed for ages. A prominent physician told me the other day that many a condition of nervous prostration now could be directly traced to selfishness. We know that hatred and anger produce fatal poisons. The rattlesnake is a splendid example of that. I am told that its poison and the white of an egg are formed of exactly the same amounts of the same elements. The difference in effect is the thought lying back of each.”

“Well!” exclaimed Doctor Siler. “You don’t pretend that the snake thinks and hates––”

“Doctor,” said Hitt, “for thousands upon thousands of years the human race has been directing hatred and fear-thoughts toward the snake. Is it any wonder that the snake is now poisonous? That it now reflects back that poisonous thought to mankind?”

“But some are not poisonous, you know.”

“Can we say how long they have not been so, or how soon our hatred will make them all poisonous? Do you know, moreover, that sorrow, remorse, all emotions, in fact, affect the perspiration that exudes from the human body? Do you know that hatred will render human perspiration the deadliest poison known to science? I am told that in a few minutes of murderous hatred enough of this poisonous perspiration is exuded from the human body to kill a man. And do you know that the thought which manifests upon the body in such deadly poison is just as deadly when sent into the mentality of a human being? Think what the Church’s deadly hatred of so-called heretics has done in the last nineteen hundred years! Why, millions have been killed by it alone! And in the name of Christ!

“But now,” he said, consulting his watch, “I must go. Even a newspaper man requires a little sleep. And I must make my apology for occupying the floor to-night to the exclusion of you all. I have gradually been filling up with these thoughts for some weeks, and I had to let them out. Besides––”

“Mr. Hitt,” interrupted Father Waite, “I shall soon be ready to report on those questions of Bible research which you assigned to me.”

“Ah, yes,” replied Hitt. “Well, have you found that Jesus really was an historical character, or not?”

“I think,” said Carmen, “that he has found that it really matters little whether there ever was such a person as the human man Jesus. The Christ has always lived; and the Christ-principle which the man Jesus is reported to have revealed to the world is with us, here, now, and always. It is the principle, rather than the man Jesus, that concerns us, is it not?”

“Miss Carmen,” interposed Reverend Moore, “Jesus was the incarnate Son of God, and your remarks concerning him are––”

“Slow up, Pat!” interrupted Doctor Morton. “I’ll fight that out with you on the way home. Come, the meeting’s adjourned.”

“We will take up that question in our next discussion,” said Hitt. “But, wait; Carmen must give us just a short song before we part.”

The girl went immediately to the piano. As she passed Hitt, she squeezed his hand. A few minutes later the little group dispersed, with the melody of the girl’s voice trembling in their souls.