Christine went on with a voice as smooth and musical as the flow of a stream over a glacier. "I have read the Bible several times, and that is more than all of you can say, I think. It is a wonderful book, and has been the inspiration of some of our best art. There are parts that I enjoy reading very much for their sublimity and peculiarity. But who pretends to live as this old and partially obsolete book teaches? Take my father, for instance. All the gentlemen in the church that I know of can do, and are accustomed to do, just what he does, and some I think do much worse; and yet he is an infidel, as you would term him. And as to the ladies, not the Bible, but fashion rules them with a rod of iron. I have cut free from it all, and art shall be my religion and the inspiration of my life." As Christine talked on, the twilight deepened, and Dennis worked with increasing eagerness. "After all," she continued, "it is only history repeating itself. The educated mind to-day stands in the same attitude toward Christianity as that of the cultured mind of Greece and Rome toward the older mythology in the second century. Then as now the form of religion was kept up, but belief in its truth was fast dying out. The cities abounded in gorgeous temples, and were thronged with worshippers, but they sacrificed at the dictates of fashion, custom, and law, not of faith. So our cities are adorned with splendid churches, and fashion and the tastes of the congregation decide as to the form of service. The sects differ widely with each other, and all differ with the Bible. The ancients gave no more respect to what was regarded as the will of their imaginary deities than do modern Christians to the precepts of the Bible. People went to the ceremonies, got through with them, and then did what they pleased; and so they do now.