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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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

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

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 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 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

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.

CHAPTER 8

For several days Ames reflected, and waited. Judging by the data which

he was able to secure, the Express was eating up money at a fearful

pace. To continue at that rate meant certain financial disaster in the

near future. And yet the publishers of the rejuvenated sheet seemed

never to count the cost of their experiment. Already they had begun

the introduction of innovations that were startling and even

mirth-provoking to staid, conservative publishers in the journalistic

field. To survive the long period necessary for the education of the

public taste to such things as the Express stood for demanded a source

of income no less permanent than La Libertad itself. But at this

thought Ames chuckled aloud.

Then an idea occurred to him. The Beaubien, of course, in her

crippled financial condition was affording the Express no monetary

assistance. Carmen had nothing. Haynerd's few thousands were long

since dissipated. Hitt's income was measured. But--ah, Miss Wall! And

her estate was handled by Ames and Company! And handled, we may add,

in such a manner that Miss Wall knew naught regarding it, except that

she might draw upon it as one dips water from a hillside spring.

Thus Ames reflected. And as he meditated upon the new paper and its

promoters, there gradually formed within him a consuming desire to see

again the fair young girl who had drawn him so strongly, despite his

mountainous wrath and his flaming desire to crush her when she boldly

faced him in his own house on the night of his grand reception. Why

had he let her escape him then? He had been a fool! True, women had

meant little to him, at least in the last few years. But this girl had

seemed to stir within him new emotions, or those long slumbering. He

knew not, coarsely materialistic as was his current thought, that in

him, as in all who came within the radius of her pure affection, she

had swept chords whose music he had never heard before.

Days passed, while Ames still mused. And then one morning he took down

the receiver and called up the office of the Express.

No, Mr. Hitt was not there--but this was his assistant. And:

"You didn't want to see Mr. Hitt, did you? You wanted to see me. Well,

you may come over."

Ames nearly dropped the receiver in his astonishment. In the first

place, the girl had read his thought; and in the second, he was not

accustomed to being told that he might go to see people--they came

cringing to him.

"You may come at twelve-fifteen," continued the clear, firm voice.

"And remain a half hour; I'm very busy."

Ames put down the instrument and looked about, thankful that no one

was there to comment on his embarrassment. Then he leaned back in his

chair and went slowly over in thought the experiences of that eventful

night in his house. Why, this slip of a girl--a half-breed Indian at

best--this mere baby--! But he glanced up at the great electric wall

clock, and wished it were then twelve-fifteen.

* * * * *

At noon Ames, jauntily swinging his light walking stick, strolled

casually into the office of the Express. His air was one of supreme

confidence in his own powers. He was superhuman, and he knew it. And

the knowledge rendered him unafraid of God, man, or beast. He had met

and conquered everything mundane, excepting this young girl. But that

thought was now delightful to him. In her he had unearthed a real

novelty, a ceaseless interest. She reminded him of a beautiful kitten.

She scratched and nettled him; but she was as nothing in his grasp.

The first thing that impressed him on entering the office was the air

of prosperity which hung over the place. The environment, he mentally

commented, was somewhat unusual for a newspaper plant. Order, quiet,

and cleanliness were dominant notes in the prevailing harmony. He

first walked back into the pressroom to see if the same conditions

prevailed there. Then he retraced his steps, and at length came to a

halt before a door bearing the inscription, "Miss Ariza," on the

glass. Turning the knob, he peered curiously in.

The room was small, but light and airy. Its furnishings were new, and

its walls had been freshly tinted. A few pictures of good quality hung

about them. A handsome rug lay upon the floor. At the desk, bending

over a new typewriter, sat Carmen.

"I beg pardon," said Ames, hesitating in the doorway.

The girl glanced up quickly. "Oh, come in," she said. "I was expecting

you."

He entered and took the chair indicated. "You don't mind if I finish

this article, do you?" she said, bending again to her work. "It's got

to go to the compositors right away."

"Certainly--don't stop," replied Ames easily. "When we talk I want

your undivided attention."

"Oh, you're sure to get it," she returned, laughing. And Ames wondered

just what she meant.

He sat back in his chair and watched her closely. How wondrous fair

she was! Yet, there was just a slight tint in her skin, he thought.

Perhaps the report that she was a mulatto was not wholly unfounded,

although the strain must have been greatly mixed. How simply she was

dressed. He remembered her in her beautiful ball gown. He thought he

preferred this. How rapidly her fingers sped over the keys. And what

fingers! What a hand! He wanted to bend over and take it in his own.

Then he suddenly remembered what the Beaubien had once told him--that

she always seemed to be a better woman in this girl's presence.

But--what changes had come since then! Could he go on persecuting the

harassed woman? But he wouldn't, if--

"There!" said the girl, with what seemed to be a little sigh of

relief. She pressed a button, and handed the typewritten sheets to the

boy who responded. Then, turning to Ames:

"You've come to apologize, haven't you? But you needn't. I'm not a bit

offended. I couldn't be, you know."

Apologize! Well, he certainly had not had any such intention when he

came in. In fact, he knew not just why he was there.

"You see, Congressman Wales didn't vote for the unaltered schedule.

And so everything's all right, isn't it?" she went on lightly.

Ames's face darkened. "No vote has been taken," he said, a dull anger

rising within him.

"Oh, you are mistaken," replied the girl. "The bill was voted out of

committee an hour ago. That's what I was writing up. Here's the wire,

showing the alterations made. Mr. Wales voted for them."

Ames read the message, and handed it back. Beyond the clouding of his

features he gave no indication of his feelings.

"So, you see," continued the girl, "that incident is closed--for all

time, isn't it?"

He did not reply for some moments. Then:

"Rather odd, isn't it?" he commented, turning quite away from that

subject, and glancing about, "that one with the high ideals you

profess should be doing newspaper work."

"Just the contrary," she quickly returned. "There is nothing so

practical as the ideal, for the ideal is the only reality."

"Well, just what, may I ask, are you trying to do here?" he

continued.

"Run a newspaper on a basis of _practical_ Christianity," she

answered, her eyes dancing. "Just as all business will have to be

conducted some day."

He leaned back and laughed.

"It is funny, isn't it?" she said, "to the carnal mind."

The laughter abruptly ceased, and he looked keenly at her. But there

was no trace of malice in her fair face as she steadily returned the

look.

"Has it paid yet?" he asked in a bantering tone.

"Splendidly!" she exclaimed.

"H'm! Well, I'll wager you won't get a dollar back on your investment

for years."

"A dollar! No, nor perhaps a penny! We are not measuring our profits

in money!"

"And your investment--let's see," he mused, trying to draw her out.

"You've put into this thing a couple of hundred thousand, eh?"

She smiled. "I'll tell you," she said, "because money is the only

measure you have for estimating the worth of our project. Mr. Hitt has

put more than that amount already into the Express."

"Well! well! Quite a little for you people to lose, eh?"

"You will have to change your tone if you remain here, Mr. Ames," she

answered quietly. "We talk only prosperity in this office."

"Prosperity! In the face of overwhelming debts! That's good!" he

laughed.

She looked at him closely for a moment. "Debts?" she said in a low

voice. "_You_ speak of debts? You who owe your fellow-men what you can

never, never repay? Why, Mr. Ames, there is no man in this whole wide

world, I think, who is so terribly, hopelessly in debt as you!"

"I? My dear girl! Why, I don't owe a dollar to any man!"

"No?" she queried, bending a little closer to him. "You do not owe

Madam Beaubien the money you are daily filching from her? You do not

owe poor Mr. Gannette the money and freedom of which you robbed him?

You do not owe anything to the thousands of miners and mill hands who

have given, and still give, their lives for you? You do not owe for

the life which you took from Mrs. Hawley-Crowles? You do not owe for

the souls which you have debauched in your black career? For the human

wreckage which lies strewn in your wake? You do not owe Mr. Haynerd

for the Social Era which you stole from him?"

Ames remained rigid and quiet while the girl spoke. And when she had

finished, and they sat looking squarely into each other's eyes, the

silence was like that which comes between the sharp click of lightning

and the crash of thunder which follows. If it had been a man who thus

addressed him, Ames would have hurled him to the floor and trampled

him. As it was, he rose slowly, like a black storm-cloud mounting

above the horizon, and stood over the girl.

She looked up into his face dauntlessly and smiled. "Sit down," she

quietly said. "I've only begun. Don't threaten, please," she

continued. "It wouldn't do any good, for I am not a bit afraid of you.

Sit down."

A faint smile began to play about Ames's mouth. Then he twitched his

shoulders slightly. "I--I got up," he said, with an assumption of

nonchalance, "to--to read that--ah, that motto over there on the

wall." He went slowly to it and, stooping, read aloud:

"Lift up the weak, and cheer the strong,

Defend the truth, combat the wrong!

You'll find no scepter like the pen

To hold and sway the hearts of men."

"That was written by your Eugene Field," offered the girl. "Now read

the one on the opposite side. It is your _Tekel Upharsin_."

He went to the one she indicated, and read the spiritual admonition

from Bryant:

"Leave the vain, low strife

That makes men mad--the tug for wealth and power--

The passions and the cares that wither life,

And waste its little hour."

"Now," continued the girl, "that is only a suggestion to you of the

real handwriting on the wall. I put it there purposely, knowing that

some day you would come in here and read it."

Ames turned and looked at her in dumb wonder, as if she were some

uncanny creature, possessed of occult powers. Then the significance of

her words trickled through the portals of his thought.

"You mean, I suppose," he said, "that if I am not persuaded by the

second motto I shall feel the force of the first, as it sways you,

eh?"

"I mean, Mr. Ames," she replied steadily, "that the world is entering

upon a new era of thought, and that your carnal views and methods

belong to a day that is past. This century has no place for them; it

wearies of the things you represent; you are the epitome of that evil

which must have its little hour of night before the reality dawns."

He regarded her intently for some moments. "Am I to understand," he

asked, "that the Express, under its new management, is about to turn

muck-raker, and shovel mud at us men of wealth?"

"We are not considering the Express now, Mr. Ames," she replied. "It

is I alone who am warning you."

"Do Hitt and Haynerd bring against me the charges which you voiced a

moment ago? And do you intend to make the columns of your paper spicy

with your comments on my character and methods? I verily believe you

are declaring war!"

"We are in the business of declaring truth, Mr. Ames," she said

gently. "The Express serves all people. It will not shield you when

you are the willing tool of evil, nor will it condone your methods at

any price."

"War, eh? Very well," he replied with a bantering smile. "I came over

here this noon to get the policy of your paper. I accept your

challenge."

"Our challenge, Mr. Ames," she returned, "is the challenge which evil

always finds in good. It is perpetual."

"Fine!" he exclaimed. "I like a good enemy, and an honest one. All

right, marshal your forces. Who's your general, Hitt or Haynerd?"

"God," she answered simply.

For an instant the man was taken back. Then he recovered himself, and

laughed.

"Do you know," he said, bending close to her, "I admire you _very_

much. You are a splendid little fighter. Now let's see if we can't get

together on terms of peace. The world hasn't used you right, and I

don't blame you for being at odds with it. I've wanted to talk with

you about this for some time. The pin-headed society hens got jealous

and tried to kill you. But, if you'll just say the word, I'll set you

right up on the very pinnacle of social prestige here. I'll take you

by the hand and lead you down through the whole crowd of 'em, and

knock 'em over right and left! I'll make you the leading woman of the

city; I'll back the Express; we'll make it the biggest newspaper in

the country; I'll make you and your friends rich and powerful; I'll

put you in the place that is rightfully yours, eh? Will you let me?"

He was bending ever nearer, and his hand closed over hers when he

concluded. His eyes were looking eagerly into her face, and a smile,

winning, enticing, full of meaning, played about his lips. His voice

had dropped to a whisper.

Carmen returned his smile, but withdrew her hand. "I'll join you," she

said, "on one condition."

"Name it!" he eagerly cried.

"That you obey me."

"Well--and what does that mean?"

"Go; sell that thou hast; and give to the poor. Then come, take up the

cross, and follow--my leader."

He straightened up, and a sneer curled his lips. "I suppose," he

coarsely insinuated, "that you think you now have material for an

illuminating essay on my conversation."

"No," she said gently. "It is too dark to be illuminating."

The man's facial muscles twitched slightly under the sting, but he

retained his outward composure. "My dear girl," he said, "it probably

has not occurred to you that the world regards the Express as utterly

without excuse for existence. It says, and truly, that a wishy-washy

sheet such as it, with its devitalized, strained, and bolted reports

of the world's vivid happenings, deserves to go under from sheer lack

of interest. The experiment has been tried before, and has signally

failed. Money alone can keep your paper alive. But, say the word,

and--"

"And your money, as well as your business ideals, will be ours?" she

concluded for him.

He smiled and nodded.

"Mr. Ames," she said, "you have no ideals. No man who amasses millions

by taking advantage of the world's inhuman and pernicious social

system can have ideals worthy of the name. To apply your methods, your

thought, to the Express would result in sinking its moral tone into

the dust. As for your money--"

"Commit suicide, then!" cried the man, yielding to his rising anger.

"Let the Express go down, carrying you and your spineless associates

with it! But, remember, you will be the sole cause of its ruin, and

theirs!"

Carmen rose quietly and opened the office door. "Your half hour is up,

Mr. Ames," she said, glancing at the little clock on her desk; "and I

must return to my work."

For a moment the huge man stood looking down darkling upon the girl.

He would have given his soul if he could have clasped that slender

form in his arms! A sudden impulse assailed him, and bade him fall

upon his knees before her, and ask her forgiveness and guidance. She

stood waiting--perhaps just for that, and always with that same smile

into which no one had ever yet read aught but limitless love.

The telephone bell rang sharply. Carmen hastened to answer the call.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Hitt. Yes--yes--the cotton schedule was reported out

quite changed--yes, an hour ago!"

When she looked up, she was alone.

* * * * *

"Dearie," said the Beaubien at evening, as Carmen seated herself in

that woman's lap and wound her arms about her neck, "I am afraid for

you."

"Well, mother dearest," replied the girl, giving her a tighter

squeeze, "that is a sheer waste of time. If you haven't anything more

to occupy you than fear, you'd better come down to the office, and

I'll set you to work."

"But--you have defied him--as he says, declared war--"

"No, dearest, not that. It is the carnal mind, using him as a channel,

that has declared war against good. But evil is not power; nor has it

been given power by God. My one thought is this: Am I doing that which

will result in the greatest good to the greatest number? Am I loving

my neighbor as myself? Serving as I would be served? Not as evil would

want to be served, but as good. If my mental attitude is right, then

God's law becomes operative in all that I do, and I am protected.

Don't you see?"

"I know, dearie, but--there's the telephone! Oh, I do hope they don't

want you!"

Carmen answered the call, and returned with the announcement that

Haynerd was in distress. "Sidney Ames is--not there," she said. "He

was to report a meeting. Mr. Haynerd wanted Lewis. Now don't worry,

dearest; I--I won't go alone."

The girl had taken her coat and hat. A moment later she gave the

Beaubien a kiss, and hurried out into the night. In half an hour she

stood at Haynerd's desk.

"What are we going to do?" moaned that perturbed individual. "Here I

am, tied down, depending on Sid, and he's drunk!"

"Well, I'm here. What's the assignment?"

Haynerd looked up at her, and hesitated. "Mass meeting, over on the

East Side. Here's the address," taking up a slip of paper. "Open

meeting, I'm told; but I suspect it's an I. W. W. affair. Hello!" he

said, replying to a telephone call. "What's that? The Ames mills at

Avon closed down this afternoon? What's reason? Oh, all right. Call me

in an hour."

He hung up the receiver and turned to Carmen. "That's what this

meeting is about," he said significantly. "Four thousand hands

suddenly thrown out at the Avon mills. Dead of winter, too!"

Sidney Ames slouched into the editor's office and sank heavily into a

chair. Haynerd gave a despairing gesture. "Look here," he said, in

sudden desperation, "that fellow's got to be sobered up, now! Or

else--"

Another call came, this time from the Beaubien. Father Waite had just

come in. Could he take the assignment? Haynerd eagerly gave the

address over the 'phone, and bade him start at once.

"Now," he said, nodding at Carmen, and jerking his thumb over his

shoulder toward the intoxicated reporter, "it's up to you."

Carmen rose at once and went to the lad. "Come, Sidney," she said,

taking his hand.

The boy roused dully, and shuffled stupidly after the girl into her

own little office.

Carmen switched on the lights and closed the door. Then she went to

the limp, emaciated form crumpled up in a chair, and sat down beside

it.

"Sidney," she said, taking his hand, "there is but one habit--the

habit of righteousness. That is the habit that you are going to wear

now."

Outside, the typewriters clicked, the telephones tinkled, and the

linotypes snapped. There were quick orders; men came and went

hurriedly; but there was no noise, no confusion. Haynerd toiled like a

beaver; but his whole heart was in his work. He had found his niche.

Carmen's little room voiced the sole discordant note that night. And

as the girl sat there, holding the damp hand of the poor victim, she

thanked her God that the lad's true individuality was His pure

thought of him.

* * * * *

At dawn Sidney Ames awoke. A rosy-tinted glow lay over the little

room, and the quiet form at his side seemed an ethereal presence. A

gentle pressure from the hand that still clasped his brought a return

of his earthly sense, and he roused up.

"Miss Carmen! You--?"

"Yes, Sidney." The gentle voice sounded to him like distant music.

"I--you--you brought me in here last night--but--" His hands closed

about the little one that lay in his grasp. "You--haven't sat

here--with me--all night?"

"Yes, Sidney, all night."

With a low moan the boy buried his face in her arms, and burst into a

flood of bitter tears.

"It isn't real, Sidney," she whispered, twining an arm about his neck.

"It isn't real."

For some moments the lad sobbed out his shame and misery. Carmen

stroked his fair hair, and drew him closer to her, while tears of love

and pity coursed down her own cheeks.

Then, suddenly, the boy started up. "Don't touch me!" he cried,

struggling to his feet, while his eyes shone with a wild light.

He started for the door, but Carmen darted past him and stood with her

back against it, facing him. "Stop, Sidney!" she cried, holding her

hands against him. "It can't drive you! It is powerless! _God reigns

here!_"

She turned the lock as he hesitated; then took his arm and led him,

trembling and shivering, back to his chair.

"We are going to meet this, Sidney, you and I," she whispered, bending

over the shaking form.

The suffering lad shook his head and buried his face in his hands.

"You can't," he moaned; "you can't--I'm _gone!_" His voice died into a

tremble of hopeless despair, of utter surrender.

Carmen bit her lip. She had faced many trying situations in her brief

life-experience; but, though she met it with dauntless courage and

knew its source, the insidious suggestion now persisted that the eyes

of her people were upon her, and that by this would stand or fall

their faith. Aye, the world was watching her now, keen-eyed and

critical. Would she give it cause to say she could not prove her faith

by her works?

And then came the divine message that bade her "Know that I am

God!"--that bade her know that responsibility lay not upon her

shoulders, but upon the Christ for whom she was now called to

witness. To see, or permit the world to see, this mountainous error,

this heaped-up evil, as real and having power, meant a denial of the

Christ and utter defeat. It meant a weary retracing of her own steps,

and a long night of spiritual darkness to those whose eyes had been

upon her.

"Sidney," she said, turning to the sunken boy at her side, "you are

right, the old man _is_ gone. And now we are going to create 'new

heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor

come into mind'--as thought. Underneath are the everlasting arms, and

you have sunk down, down, down, until at last you rest upon them, and

you find that you haven't sunk at all, and that you couldn't possibly

get away from that infinite Love that is always drawing you to

itself!"

She put her arm again about the lad, and drew him toward her. "Listen,

Sidney dear, I am standing with you--and with me is omnipotent God!

His arm is not shortened, that it can not save you from the pit of

spiritual oblivion into which human thought would seem to make you

think you had fallen, engulfed by the senses."

The boy raised his head and looked at her through his bloodshot eyes.

"You don't know!" he whispered hoarsely; "you don't understand--"

"It is just because I _do_ understand, Sidney, that I am able to help

you," she interrupted quickly. "I understand it all."

"It--it isn't only whiskey--it's--" his head sank again--"it's--morphine!

And--God! it's got me!"

"It's got the false thought that seems to call itself 'you,'" she

said. "Well, let it have it! They belong together. Let them go. We'll

cling to them no longer, but shake them off for good. For good, I

said, Sidney--and that means, for _God_!"

"God?" he echoed. "I know no God! If there were a God, I shouldn't be

where I am now."

"Then I will know it for you," she softly answered. "And you are now

right where you belong, in Him. And His love is about you."

"Love!" He laughed bitterly. "Love! I never knew what it meant. My

parents didn't teach it to their children. And when I tried to learn,

my father kicked me into the street!"

"Then, Sidney, I'll teach you. For I am in the world just to show what

love will do."

"My father--it's his fault--all his fault!" cried the boy, flaring up

and struggling to rise. "God! I hate him--hate him! It's his fault

that I'm a sot and a drug fiend!"

"It is hate, Sidney, that manifests in slavery, in sodden brains, and

shaking nerves. You don't hate your father; the hate is against your

thought of him; and that thought is all wrong. We're going to correct

it."

"I used to drink--some, when I lived at home," the boy went on, still

dwelling on the thoughts that held him chained. "But he could have

saved me. And then I fell in love--I thought it was love, but it

wasn't. The woman was--she was years older than I. When she left the

city, I followed her. And when I found out what she was, and came back

home, my father threw me out--cut me off--God!"

"Never mind, Sidney," the girl whispered. "It isn't true anyway." But

she realized that the boy must voice the thoughts that were tearing

his very soul, and she suffered him, for it uncovered to her the

hidden sources of his awful malady.

"And then I drank, drank, drank!" he moaned. "And I lay in the

gutters, and in brothels, and--then, one day, Carlson told me to come

and work for him. He thought I could straighten up. And so I went to a

doctor, and he--God curse him!--he injected morphine into my arm to

sober me. And that taught me that I could drink all I wanted to, and

sober up on morphine. But then I learned--I found--"

He stopped, and began to fumble in his pockets. His eyes became wilder

as he searched.

"Where is it?" he cried, turning fiercely upon the girl. "Did you take

it from me? Give it to me--_quick_!" He caught her wrist and twisted

it painfully. His voice became a scream.

_"God is everywhere!"_ flashed through the girl's thought. "I am not

afraid to see evil seem to have power!" Then aloud: "I know what you

are searching for, Sidney. Yes, I have it. Listen, and I will give it

to you. You are searching for help. No, it isn't in morphine tablets.

It is in love--right here--the Christ-principle, that is bigger far

than the demons that seem to tear you! I have _all_ power from God,

and you, evil, _can not touch me_!"

The boy started at the ringing voice, and loosened his grasp. Then he

sank back into his chair, shaking as with palsy.

"Sidney!" she cried, seizing his hand. "Rise, and stand with me! We

don't have to struggle--we don't have to fight--we only have to

_know_. All that you are wrestling with is the world-wide belief that

there is a power apart from God! _There is none!_ Any claim that there

is such a power is a lie! I have proved it! You and I will prove it

again! There is no power or intelligence in whiskey or morphine! I

have been sent to help you! The Christ-principle will save you! There

is nothing beyond its reach, not even your problem!

"It is a problem, that's all, Sidney," she went on, as he became

calmer. "And I have the solution. Will you put yourself in my charge,

in my care, and let me meet it for you?" She bent over him and looked

eagerly into his drawn face.

"We are not going to fight," she continued. "We are not going to

resist evil as the world does, and so make it real. I know, dear, just

how pressing your need is. I know, and I understand. I know how

awfully real it seems to you. But trust me, as I trust the Christ. For

_victory is inevitable_!"

For a few moments they sat together, hand in hand. The boy seemed to

have been stunned. Then Carmen rose. "Come," she said. "I am going to

take you home with me. I am going to keep you right with me, right

under my thought. I'm going to be the mirror, constantly with you,

that reflects infinite love to you every moment. Come; your problem is

mine now. The burden of proof rests upon me. Don't think of anything

else now, excepting that God has your hand and is leading you."

She took his arm and drew him, unresisting, yet uncomprehending, to

the door. As she opened it, she looked up into his face and smiled.

The boy choked, and turned back.

"No!" she cried, shifting her grasp to his hand. "No; you are mine

now! And I shall not turn you over to yourself again until the problem

is solved!"

Hitt met them as they came out of the room. "Well," he said, "I've

kept Madam Beaubien informed as well as I could. But she's been

worried. Where are you going?"

"Home," she said simply. "We'll be back at three--perhaps."

* * * * *

But at three that afternoon the Beaubien telephoned to Hitt that

Carmen would not be down.

"She will not leave the boy," the woman said. "She holds him--I don't

know how. And I know he is trying desperately to help her. But--I

never saw any one stand as she does! Lewis is here, but he doesn't

interfere. We're going to put a bed in his room, and Sidney will sleep

there. Yes, I'll keep you informed. Tell Ned, won't you?"

Haynerd stormed; but the tempest was all on the surface. "I know, I

know," he said, in reply to Hitt's explanation. "That boy's life is

more to her than a million newspapers, or anything else in the

universe just at present. She'll win! The devil can't look her in the

face! I--I wish I were--What are you standing there for? Go 'long and

get to work!"

In the little Beaubien cottage that afternoon the angry waves of human

fear, of human craving, of hatred, wrath, and utter misery mounted

heaven-high, and fell again. Upon them walked the Christ. As the

night-shadows gathered, Sidney Ames, racked and exhausted, fell into a

deep sleep. Then Carmen left his bedside and went into the little

parlor, where sat the Beaubien and Father Waite.

"Here," she said, handing a hypodermic needle and a vial of tablets to

the latter. "He didn't use them. And now," she continued, "you must

work with me, and stand--firm! Sidney's enemies are those of his own

mental household. It is our task to drive them out. We have got to

uproot from his consciousness the thought that alcohol and drugs are a

power. Hatred and self-condemnation, as well as self-love, voiced in a

sense of injury, are other mental enemies that have got to be driven

out, too. There is absolutely _no_ human help! It is all mental, every

bit of it! You have got to know that, and stand with me. We are going

to prove the Christ-principle omnipotent with respect to these seeming

things.

"But," she added, after a moment's pause, "you must not watch this

error so closely that it can't get away. Don't watch it at all! For if

you do, you make a reality of it--and then, well--"

"The case is in your hands, Carmen," said Father Waite gently. "We

know that Jesus would cure this boy instantly, if he were here--"

"Well--the Christ _is_ here!" cried the girl, turning upon him. "Put

away your 'ifs' and 'buts.' Stand, and _know_!"

The man bowed before the rebuke. "And these," he said, holding out the

needle and vial, "shall we have further use for them?"

"It will be given us what we are to do and say," she returned. "The

case rests now with God."

CHAPTER 9

Four weeks from that crisp morning when Carmen led the bewildered,

stupified lad to her home, she and Sidney sat out upon the little

porch of the cottage, drinking in the glories of the winter sun.

January was but half spent, and the lad and girl were making the most

of the sudden thaw before the colder weather which had been predicted

might be upon them.

What these intervening weeks had been to Carmen, none might have

guessed as she sat there with the sunlight filtering in streamlets of

gold through her brown hair. But their meaning to the boy might have

been read with ease in the thin, white face, turned so constantly

toward his fair companion. They were deeply, legibly written there,

those black nights, when he would dash out into the hall, determined

to break through the windows of the nearest dram shop and drink,

drink, drink, until the red liquor burst from his eyes, his mouth, his

nostrils! Those ghastly nights, when Carmen would stand before him,

her arms outspread across the door, and beat back the roaring devils

within him! Those long days of agonized desire for the vicious drug

which had sapped his manhood! Those fell hours, when low curses poured

from his burning lips upon her and upon all mankind! Those cold,

freezing sweats, and the dry, cracking fever! Those hours when, with

Carmen always by his side, he tramped mile after mile through drifts

and ice, until he dropped at length from sheer exhaustion, only to

awake, hours later, to find that the girl had brought him home, safe,

unharmed!--

And then, oh, the "Peace, be still!" which he began to hear, faint at

first, but growing in volume, until, at last, it became a mighty,

thunderous command, before which the demons paled and slunk away,

never to return! Oh, the tears of agony that had given way to tears of

joy, of thanksgiving! Oh, the weakness that had been his strength!

And, oh, the devotion of this fair girl--aye, and of her associates,

too--but all through her! Had she proved her God before the eyes of

the world? That she had! Day after day, clad in the impenetrable armor

of her love, she had stood at this struggling lad's side, meeting the

arrows of death with her shield of truth! Night after night she had

sat by his couch, her hand crushed in his desperate grasp, flouting

the terror that stalked before his delirious gaze! What work she had

done in those long weeks, none would ever know; but the boy himself

knew that he had emerged from the valley of the shadow of death with a

new mind, and that she had walked with him all the dark, cloud-hung

way.

As they sat there in the bright sunlight that morning, their thought

was busy with the boy's future. Old plans, old ambitions, had seemed

to lift with the lifting of the mortal curse which had rested upon

him, and upward through the ashes of the past a tender flower of hope

was pushing its way. He was now in a new world. The last tie which

bound him to his family had been severed by his own father two weeks

before, when the shadow of death fell athwart his mother's brilliant

path. Mrs. J. Wilton Ames, delicate in health when recalled from

abroad, and still suffering from the fatigue of the deadly social

warfare which had preceded her sudden flight from her husband's

consuming wrath, had failed to rally from the indisposition which

seized her on the night of the grand Ames reception. For days she

slowly faded, and then went quickly down under a sharp, withering

attack of pneumonia. A few brief weeks after the formal opening of the

Ames palace its mistress had sighed away her blasted hopes, her vain

desires, her petty schemes of human conquest and revenge, and had gone

to face anew her problems on another plane of mortal thought. It was

rumored by the servants that, in her last hours, when she heard the

rustle of the death angel's wings beside her, a great terror had

stricken her, and she had called wildly for that son whom she had

never cared to know. It was whispered that she had begged of her

husband to seek the lad and lead him home; that she had pleaded with

him to strive, with the boy, to find the better things of life; that

she had begged him to warn and be warned of her present sufferings, as

she lay there, stripped of every earthly aid, impoverished in heart,

in soul, in mind, with her hands dusty and begrimed with the ashes of

this life's mocking spoils. How true these rumors, none might say.

What truth lay hidden in her mad ravings about the parentage of

Carmen, and her confused, muttered references to Monsignor Lafelle, no

one knew. But of those who stood about her bedside there was none who

could gainsay the awed whisperings of the servants that this haughty

leader of the great city's aristocracy had passed from this life into

the darkness beyond in pitiable misery and terror.

The news of his mother's death had come at a time when the boy was

wild with delirium, at an hour when Waite, and Hitt, and Carmen stood

with him in his room and strove to close their ears against the

shrieking of the demon that was tearing him. Hitt at once called up

Willett, and asked for instructions. A few minutes later came the

message that the Ames house was forever barred against the wayward

son. And it was not until this bright winter morning, when the lad

again sat clothed and in his right mind, that Carmen had gently broken

the news to him.

"I never knew her," the boy had said at length, rousing from his

meditations. "Few of the rich people's children know their parents. I

was brought up by nurses and tutors. I never knew what it was to put

my arms around my mother, and kiss her. I used to long to, at times.

And often I would plan to surprise her by suddenly running into her

arms and embracing her. But then, when I would see her, she was always

so far away, so cold, so beautifully dressed. And she seldom spoke to

me, or to Kathleen, until we were grown up. And by that time I was

running wild. And then--then--"

"There!" admonished Carmen, reaching over and taking his hand. "That's

in our little private cemetery, you know. The old error is dead, and

we are not going to dig it up and rehearse it, are we?"

He smiled wanly. "I'm like a little baby," he said sadly. "I'm just

beginning to live. And you are my mother, the only one I've ever

known."

Carmen laughed merrily. "Let me be your sister," she said. "We are so

near of an age, you know."

He raised her hand to his lips. "You are my angel," he murmured. "My

bright, beautiful angel. What would I have been without you!"

"Now, Sidney!" she warned, holding up a finger. "What have I told you

so often that Jesus said? 'Of mine own self I can do nothing.' Nor can

I, Sidney dear. It was--" her voice sank to a whisper--"it was the

Christ-principle. It worked through him as a channel; and it worked

through me."

"You're going to teach me all about that," he said, again pressing her

hand to his lips. "You won't cast me adrift yet, will you, little

sister?"

"Cast you adrift! Never, Sidney dear! Why, you're still mine, you

know! I haven't given you back to yourself yet, have I? But now let's

talk about your work. If you want to write, you are going to, and you

are going to write _right_."

"And you, Carmen?" he asked, wondering.

"Back to the Express," she said lightly. "I haven't written a word for

it now for a month. And how dear, funny old Ned has scolded!"

"You--you dropped everything--your work--all--for a poor, worthless

hulk like me," he sighed. "I--I can't understand it. You didn't know

me, hardly."

"Sidney dear," the girl replied. "It wasn't for you. It was for God.

Everything I do is '_as unto Him_.' I would have done the same for

anybody, whether I knew the person or not. I saw, not you, but the

human need--oh, such a need! And the Christ-principle made me a human

channel for meeting it, that is all. Drop my work, and my own

interests! Why, Sidney, what is anything compared with meeting human

needs? Didn't Jesus drop everything and hurry out to meet the sick and

the suffering? Was money-making, or society, or personal desire, or

worldly pleasure anything to him when he saw a need? You don't seem to

understand that this is what I am here for--to show what love will

do."

"No," he murmured. "I--I guess I know only the world's idea of love."

"And that is love's counterfeit, self-love, sentimentalism,

sex-mesmerism, and all that," she added. "But now, back to your work

again. You're going to write, write, write! My, but the world is

hungry for _real_ literature! Your yearning to meet that need is a

sign of your ability to do it. But, remember, everything that comes to

you comes from within. You are, in fact, a miner; and your mine is

your mind; and that is unlimited, for God is the only mind, infinite

and omnipresent. Now you are going to mine that mind.

"Listen," she went on hurriedly. "Don't be afraid to be afraid. We

never fear a real thing; we fear only our false thoughts of things.

Always those thoughts are absolutely wrong, and we wake up and find

that we were fearing only fear-thoughts themselves. Haven't you ever

noticed it? Now destroy the chains of fear which limit your thought,

and God will issue!

"Well," without waiting for his reply, "now you have reached that

plane of thought where you don't really care for what the world has to

offer you. You have ceased to want to be rich, or famous. You are not

afraid to be obscure and poor. You have learned, at least in part,

that the real business of this life lies in seeking good, in

manifesting and expressing it in every walk, and in reflecting it

constantly to your fellow-men. Having learned that, you are ready to

live. Remember, there is no luck, no such thing as chance. The cause

of everything that can possibly come to you lies within yourself. It

is a function of your thought. The thought that you allow to enter

your mentality and become active there, later becomes externalized.

Be, oh, so careful, then, about your thought, and the basis upon which

it rests! For, in your writing, you have no right to inflict false

thought upon your credulous fellow-mortals."

"But," he replied, "we are told that in literature we must deal with

human realities, and with things as they are. The human mind exists,

and has to be dealt with."

"The human mind does not exist, Sidney, except as supposition. There

are no human realities. The world still awaits the one who will show

it things as they _really_ are. Human realities, so-called, are the

horrible, ghastly unrealities of carnal thought, without any basis of

the divine Christ-principle. I know, we are told that the great books

of the world are those which preserve and interpret its life. Alas! is

it true greatness to detail, over and over again in endless recital,

the carnal motives of the human mind, its passions and errors, its

awful mesmerism, its final doom? Yes, perhaps, on one condition: that,

like a true critic, you picture human concepts only to show their

unreality, their nothingness, and to show how they may be overcome."

"But most books--"

"Ah, yes, most books are written only to amuse the dispirited human

mind for a brief hour, to make it forget for a moment its troubles.

They are literary narcotics; they are sops to jaded appetites, that's

all. A book, for example, that pictures an injured man discovering a

great treasure, and then using it to carry out his schemes of

revenge--well, what influence for good has such a work? It is only a

stimulus to evil, Sidney. But had it shown him using that great wealth

to bless his persecutors and turn them from their mesmerism to real

life and good--"

"Such things don't happen in this world, Carmen."

"But they could, and should, Sidney dear. And they will, some day.

Then will come the new literature, the literature of _good_! And it

will make people think, rather than relieve them from the ennui of

solid thought, as our present novels do. The intellectual palate then

will find only insipidity in such books as pour from our presses now.

The ability to converse glibly about authors who wallow in human

unrealities will then no longer be considered the hall-mark of

culture. Culture in that day will be conformity to truth."

The lad smiled at the enthusiastic girl. "Little sister," he said,

"you are a beautiful idealist."

"But," came her quick reply, "are you not a living illustration of the

practicability of my idealism, Sidney?"

The boy choked, and tears filled his eyes. Carmen stole an arm about

him. "The most practical man who ever lived, Sidney dear, was Jesus.

And he was the greatest idealist. He had ideas that differed very

radically from other people's, but he did not hide them for fear of

giving offense. He was not afraid to shock people with the truth about

themselves. He tore down, yes; but he then reconstructed, and on a

foundation of demonstrable truth. He was not afraid to defy the

Rabbis, the learned, and the puffed-up. He did not bow abjectly before

the mandarins and pedagogues. Had he done so, and given the people

what they wanted and were accustomed to, they would have made him a

king--and his mission would have been a dead failure!"

"And for that they slew him," returned the boy.

"It is the cowardly fear of slaughter, Sidney, that keeps people from

coming out and standing for what they know to be right to-day. You are

not one of those cravens."

"But the people who do that, Carmen, are called demagogues and

muck-rakers!"

She laughed. "And the muck-rakers, Sidney, have made a sorry mess,

haven't they? They destroy without ruth, but seldom, if ever, put

forth a sane suggestion for the betterment of conditions. They traffic

in sensationalism, carping criticism, and abuse. 'To find fault,' said

Demosthenes, 'is easy, and in every man's power; but to point out the

proper remedy is the proof of a wise counselor.' The remedy which I

point out, Sidney, is the Christ-principle; and all I ask is that

mankind seek to demonstrate it, even as Jesus bade us do. He was a

success, Sidney, the greatest success the world has ever known. And

why? Because he followed ideals with utter loyalty--because he voiced

truth without fear--because he made his business the service of

humanity. He took his work seriously, not for money, not for human

preferment, but for mankind. And his work bears the stamp of

eternity."

"I'm afraid--" he began.

"You're _not_ afraid, Sidney!" the girl quickly interrupted. "Oh, why

does the human mind always look for and expect that which it does not

want to see come or happen!"

The boy laughed heartily at the quick sally of her delightfully

quotidian thought. "You didn't let me finish," he said. "I was going

to say that I'm afraid if I write and speak only of spiritual things I

shall not be understood by the world, nor even given a hearing."

"Well, don't use that word 'afraid.' My! how the human mind clings to

everything, even words, that express its chief bogy, fear."

"All right; I accept the rebuke. But, my question?"

"That was the case with Jesus. And yet, has anything, written or

spoken, ever endured as his spiritual teachings? The present-day novel

or work of fiction is as fleeting as the human thought it attempts to

crystallize. Of the millions of books published, a handful endure.

Those are they which illustrate the triumph of good over evil in human

thought. And the greatest of such books is the Bible."

"Well, I'm hunting for a subject now."

"Don't hunt. Wait--and _know_! The subject will then choose you. It

will pelt you. It will drive you to the task of transcribing it. Just

as one is now driving me. Sidney--perhaps I can give you the subject!

Perhaps I am the channel for this, too!"

He looked at her inquisitively. "Well," bending over closer to her,

"what is it, little sister?"

The girl looked out over the dripping shrubs and the soft snow. But

her thought was not there. She saw a man, a priest, she knew not

where, but delving, plodding, digging for the truth which the human

mind has buried under centuries and centuries of material _débris_.

She saw him, patiently bearing his man-made burden, striving to shield

a tender, abandoned girl, and to transfer to her his own great worldly

knowledge, but without its dross. She saw the mighty sacrifice, when

the man tore her from himself, and thrust her out beyond the awful

danger in which he dwelt. She understood now. The years had taught her

much. It was love--aye, the love that alone makes men great, the love

that lays down human life in self-immolating service.

She turned to the waiting lad. "You will write it, Sidney? I will tell

you the whole beautiful story. It is an illustration of the way love

works through human channels. And perhaps--perhaps, some day, the book

may reach him--yes, some day. And it will tell him--oh, Sidney, it

will tell him that I know, and that I love him, love him, love him!"

* * * * *

In the office of the manager of the Express three heads were close

together that morning, and three faces bore outward evidence of the

serious thought within.

"Miss Wall tells me, Ned," Hitt was saying, "that her father used to

be associated with Ames, and that, at his demise, he left his estate,

badly entangled, for Ames to settle. Now it transpires that Ames has

been cunning enough to permit Miss Wall to draw upon his bank almost

without limit, he making up any deficit with his own personal notes."

"Ah!" commented Haynerd. "I think I see the shadow of his fine hand!"

"And now," resumed Hitt, "she is given to understand that Ames has

been obliged by the bank examiner to withdraw his personal notes as

security for her deficits, and that the revenue from her estate must

be allowed to accrue to the benefit of the Ames bank until such time

as all obligations are met."

"Beautiful!" ejaculated Haynerd. "In other words, Elizabeth is simply

cut off!"

"Just so. And now, another thing: Madam Beaubien's lawyer called on

her to-day, and informed her that Hood had gone into court and secured

an injunction, tying up all revenue from her estate until it can be

unraveled. That cuts off her income, likewise."

Haynerd whistled. "The hound!" he ejaculated. "Ames is out to do up

the Express, eh?"

"There is no doubt of it, Ned," returned Hitt seriously. "And to

utterly ruin all connected with it."

"Then, by God, we'll fight him to the last ditch!" cried the excited

Haynerd.

"I think you forget, Ned, that we have a lady with us," nodding toward

Miss Wall, "and that you are seriously trying to reform, for Carmen's

sake."

"I beg your pardon, Elizabeth," said Haynerd meekly. "I really am

trying to be decent, you know. But when I think of Ames it's like a

red rag to a bull!"

Miss Wall laughed. "Never mind, Ned. I admire your fighting spirit."

"Of course," Hitt continued, "oil still flows from our paternal wells.

But in order to raise money at once I shall be obliged either to sell

my oil holdings or mortgage them. They have got to take care of us all

now, including Madam Beaubien."

"Where's Carmen?" asked Haynerd suddenly.

"Home, with Sidney. There's another anomaly: while Ames is trying to

ruin us, that girl is saving his son. Great world, isn't it?"

"It's a hell of a world!" cried Haynerd. "I--I beg your pardon,

Elizabeth. The fact is, either you or I will have to retire from this

meeting, for I'm getting mad. I--I may say things yet!"

"Say anything you want to, Ned. I like to hear your sulphurous

language to-day. It helps to express my own feelings," replied the

woman.

"The circulation of the Express," Hitt went on, "is entirely

artificial. Our expense is tremendous, and our revenue slight. And

still Carmen insists on branching out and putting into practical form

her big ideas. Limitation is a word that is not in her vocabulary!"

"Hitt, can't we fight Ames with his own fire? What about that Wales

affair?"

"Ames is very cunning," answered Hitt. "When he learned that the

cotton schedule had been altered in the Ways and Means Committee, he

promptly closed down his Avon mills. That was to scare Congress. Then

he resumed, but on half time. That was a plea of distress. I presume

he will later return to full time, but with a reduced scale of wages.

He's trying to coerce Congress. Now how does he intend to do it? This

way: he will force a strike at Avon--a February strike--four thousand

hands out in the cold. Meantime, he'll influence every other spinner

in the country to do likewise. They'll all follow his lead. Now, can

Congress stand up against that sort of argument? And, besides, he will

grease the palms of a large number of our dignified statesmen, you may

be sure!"

"Mr. Hitt," said Miss Wall, "I suggest that you send Carmen to Avon at

once. I know of no one who can get to the bottom of things as she can.

Let her collect the facts regarding the situation down there, and

then--"

"Send her first to Washington!" interrupted Haynerd. "Have her hang

around the lobbies of the Capitol for a while, and meet a lot of those

old sap-heads. What information she won't succeed in worming out of

them isn't in 'em, that's all!"

"But," objected Hitt, "if she knew that we would use her information

for a personal attack upon Ames, she'd leave us."

"There's no objection to her getting the facts, anyway, is there?"

demanded Haynerd, waxing hot again.

"N--no, I suppose not. But that will take additional money. Very well,

I'll do it. I'll put a mortgage on my Ohio holdings at once."

"I don't think I would be afraid," suggested Miss Wall. "We might not

use the information Carmen may collect in Avon or Washington, but

something, I am sure, is bound to come out of it. Something always

comes out of what she does. She's the greatest asset the Express has.

We must use her."

"All well and good," put in Haynerd. "And yet, if she finds anybody

down there who needs help, even the President himself, she'll throw

the Express to the winds, just as she did in Sidney's case. You can't

bank on her!"

"No, that's true, Ned, for while we preach she's off somewhere

practicing. We evolve great truths, and she applies and demonstrates

them. But she has saved Sidney--her Christ did it through her. And she

has given the lad to us, a future valuable man."

"Sure--if we are to _have_ any future," growled Ned.

"See here," retorted Hitt, brindling, "have we in our numerous

gatherings at Madam Beaubien's spoken truth or nonsense? If you

believe our report, then accept and apply it. Now who's to go to Avon

with Carmen?"

"Sidney," suggested Miss Wall.

"Sid?" exclaimed Haynerd. "Huh! Why, if those Magyars down there

discovered he was Ames's son, they'd eat him alive!"

The telephone rang. Hitt answered the call. Then, turning to his

companions:

"Waite says he wants a meeting to-night. He'd like to report on his

research work. Guess we'd better call it. I'll inform Morton. No

telling when we may get together again, if the girl--" He became

suddenly silent, and sat some time looking vacantly out through the

window.

"She goes to Avon to-morrow," he abruptly announced, "alone." His

thought had been dwelling on that 'something not ourselves' which he

knew was shielding and sustaining the girl.

CHAPTER 10

"We have now arrived at a subject whose interest and significance for

us are incalculable," said Father Waite, standing before the little

group which had assembled in their usual meeting place in the first

hours of the morning, for only at that time could Hitt and Haynerd

leave the Express. "We have met to discuss briefly the meaning of that

marvelous record of a whole nation's search for God, the Bible. As

have been men's changing concepts of that 'something not ourselves

that makes for righteousness,' so have been individuals, tribes, and

nations. The Bible records the development of these concepts in

Israel's thought; it records the unquenchable longings of that people

for truth; it records their prophetic vision, their sacred songs,

their philosophy, their dreams, and their aspirations. To most of us

the Bible has long been a work of profound mystery, cryptical,

undecipherable. And largely, I now believe, because we were wont to

approach it with the bias of preconceived theories of literal, even

verbal, inspiration, and because we could not read into it the record

of Israel's changing idea of God, from a wrathful, consuming Lord of

human caprice and passions, to the infinite Father of love, whom Jesus

revealed as the Christ-principle, which worked through him and through

all who are gaining the true spiritual concept, as is this girl who

sits here on my right with the lad whom you have seen rescued by the

Christ from the pit of hell."

His voice choked when he referred to Carmen and Sidney. But he quickly

stifled his emotion, and went on:

"In our last meeting Mr. Hitt clearly showed us how the so-called

human mind has seemed to develop as the suppositional opposite of the

mind that is God; and how through countless ages of human reckoning

that pseudo-mind has been revealing its various types, until at

length, rising ever higher in the scale of being, it revealed its

human man as a mentality whose consciousness is the suppositional

activity of false thought, and which builds, incessantly, mental

concepts out of this kind of thought and posits them within itself as

material objects, as its own body, its universe, its all. And he

showed us how, little by little, that human mind's interpretations of

the infinite mind's true ideas became better, under the divine

infiltration of truth, until at last there developed a type, now known

to us as the Jewish nation, which caught a clearer glimpse of truth,

and became conscious of that 'something not ourselves' which makes

for right-thinking, and consequent correct mental concepts and

externalizations. This, then, was the starting point of our religion.

These first glimpses of truth, and their interpretations, as set forth

in the writings of the early Jewish nation, constitute the nucleus of

our Bible.

"But were these records exact statements of truth? Not always. The

primitive human mind could only lisp its wonderful glimpses of truth

in legend and myth. And so in fable and allegory the early Israelites

sought to show the power of good over evil, and thereby stimulate a

desire for right conduct, based, of course, on right-thinking. And

thus it is that the most significant thing in their sacred records is

their many, many stories of the triumph of the spiritual over the

material.

"Time passed. The Hebrew nation waxed prosperous. Their right-thinking

became externalized outwardly in material abundance and physical

comfort. But the people's understanding was not sufficiently great to

shield them from the temptation which material wealth and power always

constitute. Their vision gradually became obscured. The mist of

materialism spread over it. Those wonderful flashes of truth ceased to

dart across their mental horizon. Their god became a magnified concept

of the human man, who dickered with them over the construction of his

temples, and who, by covenants, bribes, and promises, induced them to

behave themselves. Prophecy died. And at length the beautiful vision

faded quite away.

"Then followed four hundred human years, during which the vicissitudes

of the Hebrew nation were many and dark. But during those long

centuries there developed that world wonder, a whole nation's united

longing for a deliverer! The prophets promised a great change in their

fallen fortunes. Expectation grew keen. Desire expanded into yearning.

Their God would not forsake them. Was not His grace sufficient? Though

their concept of Him had grossly degenerated, yet the deliverer would

come, he _must_!

"And he did. In the depths of their night--in the midst of the

heaviest darkness that ever lay over the world--there arose a great

light. Through the densest ignorance of the human mind filtered the

Christ-principle, and was set forth by the channel through which it

came, the man Jesus.

"What had happened? Had there been a conference among God, the Son,

and the Holy Ghost, to debate the sending of salvation to mankind, as

recorded by the poet Milton? Alas! what a crude, materialistic

conception. Had God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten

Son? But God _is_ Love, infinite, unchanging. And His unique Son, the

Christ-principle, available to all mankind, was 'before Abraham.' Had

a great, dimly perceived principle been demonstrated, namely, that,

if we yearn long and earnestly for the right, it comes? Had the Jewish

nation 'demonstrated' the Christ? Had their centuries of looking and

expecting resulted in a saviour being manifested to them? It was a

period in the unfolding of human thought when civilization had reached

its lowest depths. Morality had evaporated to the dregs. Rome was

become the world's harlot. A few years more, and Nero would drag his

vulpine immorality across the stage. Paganism was virtue in comparison

with the lust of men in that dark hour. And yet, in the very midst of

it, appeared the most venerated, the most beloved man in all history,

bearing the Christ-message like a flaming torch!

"'Always our being is descending into us,' said Emerson. But our true

being can be none other than infinite mind's idea of itself. Our true

individuality must be the way that mind regards us. And thus it was

that Israel's true being descended, filtering in through the thick

mists of error. That true being was the deliverer, _par excellence_,

for it was the message of truth that bade men deny themselves, their

carnal selves, and know but the one God, infinite mind. That was the

grace sufficient for them, that would have solved their problems, that

would have enabled them to lay off the 'old man' and his woes and

afflictions, and put on the 'new man,' divine mind's image. But the

carnal mind sought a material kingdom. It wanted, not spirit, but

matter. It cruelly rejected the message-bearer, and sought to kill his

message by slaying him on the cross. And thereby the Jewish nation

rent itself asunder, and sank into carnal oblivion. Ah, how they have

been cursed by the crucifixion of Jesus!

"Men ask to-day: Did Jesus really live? Or is he a mythical character,

like the gods of pagan Rome? Let us ask, in making our reply, how

truth comes to mankind? Is it not always through some human channel?

Then the great sayings attributed to Jesus at least came from a human

being. Let us go further: it is the common history of mankind that

truth comes to the human mind only after a period of preparation. Not

conscious preparation, necessarily, but, rather, a preparation forced

by events. The truth of a mathematical principle can not come to me

unless I am prepared to receive it. And the greatest good comes to men

only after they have learned the nothingness of the material ambitions

and aims which they have been pursuing. By its own rottenness the

world had been made fallow for truth. The awfulness of its own

exposure in its rampant, unlicensed revels, had shown as never before

the human mind's absolute nothingness--its nothingness as regards real

value, permanence, and genuine good--in that first century of our

so-called Christian era. And when the nothingness of the carnal mind

was made plain, men saw the reality of the truth, as revealed in the

Christ, back of it all. The divine message was whispered to a human

mentality. And that mentality expanded under the God-influence, until

at last it gave to the sin-weary world the Christ-principle of

salvation. Let us call that human mentality, for convenience, the man

Jesus.

"And now, was he born of a virgin? Impossible! And yet--let us see. It

was common enough in his day for virgins to pretend to be with child

by the Holy Ghost; and so we do not criticise those who refuse to

accept the dogma of the virgin birth. But a little reflection in the

light of what we have been discussing throws a wonderful illumination

upon the question. If matter and material modes are real, then we must

at once relegate the stories of the virgin birth, the miracles, the

resurrection, and the ascension to the realm of myth. If the so-called

laws of matter are real, irrefragable laws, then we indulgently, pass

by these stories as figments of heated imaginations. But, regarding

matter as a human, mortal concept, entirely mental, and wholly subject

to the impress and influence of mind, and knowing, as we do now, that

_mental concepts change with changed thought_, we are forced to look

with more favor upon these questions which for centuries caused men to

shed their fellows' blood.

"Mr. Hitt pointed out in our last meeting that mortal beings are

interpretations in mortal or human mind of the infinite mind, God, and

its ideas. The most perfect human interpretation of God's greatest

idea, Man, was Christ Jesus. The _real_ selfhood of every one of us is

God's idea of us. It is spiritual, mental. The world calls it the

'soul,' the 'divine essence,' and the 'immortal spark.' The Christ was

the real, spiritual selfhood of the man Jesus. So the Christ is the

real selfhood of each of us. It is not born of the flesh. It is not

conceived and brought forth in conformity with human modes. Now was

this great fact externalized in the immaculate conception and birth?

It does not grow and decay and pass away in death. It is the 'unique'

Son of God which is back of each one of us. But the world has seen it

only once in its fullness, and then through the man Jesus.

"Something happened in that first century of the so-called Christian

era--something of tremendous significance. What was it? It was the

birth of the Christ-idea into the human consciousness. Was the

Christ-idea virgin-born? Aye, that it was, for God, infinite Mind,

alone was its origin and parent. The speculation which has turned

about that wonderful first century event has dealt with the human

channel through which the Christ-idea flowed to mankind. But let us

see what light our deductions throw even upon that.

"Referring all things to the realm of the mental, where we now

know they belong, we see that man never fell, but that Israel's idea

of God and man did fall, woefully. We see that the Christ-principle

appeared among men; we see that to-day it works marvels; we must

admit that throughout the ages before Jesus it had done so; we

know now that the great things which Israel is recorded to have

done were accomplished by the Christ-principle working through

men, and that when their vision became obscured they lost the

knowledge of that principle and how to use it. History records the

working of great deeds by that same Christ-principle when it was

re-born in our first century; and we also can see how the obscuring

of the spiritual by the material in the Emperor Constantine's time

caused the loss of the Church's power to do great works. We are

forced to admit the omnipotence, immanence, and eternality of the

Christ-principle, for it is divine mind, God himself. Moses, Elisha,

Elijah, the ancient prophets, all had primitive perceptions of truth,

and all became channels for the passing of the Christ-principle to

mankind in some degree. But none of these men ever illustrated that

principle as did the man Jesus. He is the most marvelous manifestation

of God that has ever appeared among mankind; so true and exact was

the manifestation that he could tell the world that in seeing him

they were actually seeing the Father. It is quite true that many

of his great sayings were not original with him. Great truths have

been voiced, even by so-called pagans, from earliest times. But he

demonstrated and made practical the truth in these sayings. And he

exposed the nothingness of the human mental concept of matter by

healing disease, walking the waves, and in other wonderful ways. It

is true that long before his time Greek philosophers had hit upon the

theory of the nothingness of matter. Plato had said that only ideas

were real. But Jesus--or the one who brought the Christ-message--was

the clearest mentality, the cleanest human window-pane, to quote

Carmen, that ever existed. Through him the divine mind showed with

almost unobscured fullness. God's existence had been discerned and

His goodness proved from time to time by prophets and patriarchs, but

by no means to the extent that Jesus proved it. There were those

before him who had asserted that there was but one reality, and that

human consciousness was not the real self. There were even those who

believed matter to be created by the force of thought, even as in

our own day. _But it remained for Jesus to make those ideas

intensely practical, even to the overcoming and dissolution of his

whole material concept of the universe and man._ And it remained

for him to show that the origin of evil is in the lie about God. It

was his mission to show that the devil was 'a man-killer from the

beginning,' because it is the supposition that there is power apart

from God. It was his life purpose to show mankind that there is

nothing in this lie to cause fear, and that it can be overcome by

overcoming the false thought which produces it. By overcoming that

thought he showed men the evanescent nature of sickness and death.

And sin he showed to be a missing of the mark through lack of

understanding of what constitutes real good.

"Turn now again to the Bible, that fascinating record of a whole

people's search for God and their changing concept of Him. Note that,

wherever in its records evil seems to be made real, it is for the

purpose of uncovering and destroying it by the vigorous statements of

truth which you will almost invariably find standing near the

exposition of error. So evil seemed very real in the first century of

our era; but it was uncovered by the coming of Jesus. The exposure of

evil revealed the Christ, right at hand."

"But," protested Haynerd, "let's get back to the question of the

virgin birth."

"Very well," replied Father Waite. "But let us first consider what

human birth is."

"Now there!" exclaimed Haynerd. "Now you are touching my lifelong

question. If I am immortal, where was I before I was born?"

"Of which 'I' are you speaking, Ned?" asked Father Waite. "The real

'I' is God's image and likeness, His reflection. It was never born,

and never dies. The human 'I' had a beginning. And therefore it will

cease to be. The human mind makes its own laws, and calls them laws of

nature, or even God's laws. And it obeys them like a slave. Because

God is both Father and Mother to His children, His ideas, the human

mind has decreed in its counterfeiting process that it is itself both

male and female, and that the union of these two is necessary in order

to give rise to another human mind. Do you see how it imitates the

divine in an apish sort of way? And so elements of each sex-type of

the human mind are employed in the formation of another, their

offspring. The process is wholly mental, and is one of human belief,

quite apart from the usage of the divine Mind, who 'spake and it was

done,' mentally unfolding a spiritual creation. The real 'you,' Ned,

has always existed as God's idea of Himself. It is spiritual, not

material. It will come to light as the material 'you' is put off. The

material 'you' did not exist before it was humanly born. It was

produced in supposition by the union of the parent human minds, which

themselves were reflections of the male and female characteristics of

the communal mortal mind. It thus had a definite, supposititious

beginning. It will therefore have a definite end."

"And so I'm doomed to annihilation, eh? That's a comforting thought!"

"Your mortal sense of existence, Ned, certainly is doomed to

extinction. That which is supposition must go out. Oh, it doubtless

will not all be destroyed when you pass through that change which we

call death. It may linger until you have passed through many such

experiences. And so it behooves you to set about getting rid of it

as soon as possible, and thus avoid the unpleasant experience of

countless death-throes. You see, Ned, an error in the premise will

appear in the conclusion. Now you are starting with the premise that

the human 'you' is real. That premise is not based upon fact. Its

basis is rank error. All that you reflect of divine mind will

endure permanently, but whatever you reflect of the lie regarding

that mind will pass away. Human beings know nothing of their origin,

nor of their existence. Why? _Because there is nothing to know

about them; they are entirely supposititious!_ Paul says, in his

letter to the Romans: 'They which are the children of the flesh, these

are not the children of God.' The birth of the children of the

flesh is wholly a human-mind process. The infant mentality thus

produced knows nothing whatsoever of itself. It has no knowledge; is

not founded on truth. It will later manifest hereditary beliefs,

showing the results of prenatal mesmerism. Then it will receive the

general assortment of human thought and opinion--very little of it

based on actual truth--which the world calls education. Then it

learns to regard itself as an individual, a separate being. And soon

it attributes its origin to God. But the prenatal error will appear

in the result. The being manifests every gradation of human thought;

it grows; it suffers and enjoys materially; it bases its very

existence upon matter; it manifests the false activity of human

thought in material consciousness; and then it externalizes its

beliefs, the consentaneous human beliefs, upon its body and in its

environment; and finally, the activity of the false thought which

constitutes its consciousness ceases--and the being dies. Yes, its

death will be due to sin, to '_hamartio_,' missing the mark. It

never knew God. And that, Ned, is human life, so-called.

"Death is not in any sense a cessation of life. The being who dies

never knew what it was to live. Death is the externalization of

human, mortal beliefs, which are not based upon real knowledge, truth.

And so, human birth is itself death. Paul said: 'They that are after

the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the

spirit the things of the spirit.' In other words, mankind are striving

terribly, desperately, to keep alive a sense of material, fleshly

existence. But they can't do it. They are foredoomed to failure,

despite the discovery of antitoxins. In the book of Job we read: 'The

spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given

me life.' Where, then, is the reality in prenatal mesmerism and the

drag of heredity? It is all supposition, all a part of the one lie,

the 'man-killer.'

"The change called death comes to all mortals. It is the culmination

of the human mind's sense of limitation. It does not usher them into

immortal, illimitable bliss. It but leaves them upon another seeming

plane of mortal thought, there to drag out another sense of existence,

unless they have so learned the lesson which Jesus taught as to enable

them to overcome death. It will not be overcome for us. That is our

work. We have been shown how to do it. Why, then, do we waste our time

in trivial things; in the heaping up of useless money; in the vain

strife for sensual pleasures? The mortal will live and die, and live

and die, until at last he is beaten into line and forced to

demonstrate the Christ-principle. Hadn't we better begin that right

here and now? Wishing to die doesn't solve our problems. Suicide only

makes us start again, worse off than before. We shall overcome death

when we have overcome sin, for the physical manifestation called death

is but the externalization in conscious experience of spiritual

death--lack of a demonstrable understanding of Life, Truth, Spirit,

which is God, unlimited good."

"And the Church, Protestant and Catholic, with their ceremonies, their

Masses, and--"

"They have woefully missed the mark, Ned. They are all but spiritually

dead. But I see protest rising in our good friends, Doctor Siler and

Reverend Moore, so I will hasten on, for we have much ground still to

cover.

"Now, knowing that birth is a humanly mental process, is it possible

that the man Jesus was 'born of a virgin'? Quite so; but, more, _no

man ever conceived and born in the way human beings are generated has

ever begun to approach Jesus in degree of spirituality_. If he had

been born in human ways, is it likely that he would ever have

developed such intense spirituality? Well, not in a brief thirty-three

years or so! And, on the other hand, if he had come into the world in

some way other than by being born of a woman, would he have been

understandable at all to the human mind? I think not. He would have

been wholly in the realm of the mental, far above human perception. If

he had been conceived by the union of the two sexes, as is the

mortal-mind mode of generation, would he not have been too material to

have so quickly developed that spirituality which made him the light

of the world at the age of thirty-three? I think it is a fair

question. The theory of the virgin birth at least seems to meet the

need of a sort of middle course, whereby the man should not be too

human to be the channel for the great measure of spirituality with

which he was endowed, and yet should be human enough to be appreciable

to other human minds.

"Remember, the Jesus who has been reported to us must have regarded

matter as unreal, as nothingness. His works plainly show that. And

they as plainly show that he came from the Father. His whole life was

such as to render the virgin birth almost a necessity, as I see it.

How otherwise can we explain him? And from a study of the Gospels I

simply can not avoid the conclusion that his knowledge of the allness

of God rendered matter such a nonentity to him that he overcame all

material laws, overcame the world of matter, and even at the last

dematerialized his material body. It's an astonishing thought--and

yet, who can show that it is not true? There are some things that

reason insists on our accepting, despite the paucity of human

records."

"I believe, Mr. Waite," said Doctor Morton, "that the Gospels

according to Mark and John make no mention of the virgin birth. Is it

not so?"