Every smallest village had its temple, and in those gracious retreats sat wise and noble women, quietly busy at some work of their own until they were wanted, always ready to give comfort, light, or help, to any applicant. Ellador told me afterward how easily this grief of hers was assuaged, and seemed ashamed of not having helped herself out of it. “You see, we are not accustomed to horrible ideas,” she said, coming back to me rather apologetically. “We haven’t any. And when we get a thing like that into our minds it’s like--oh, like red pepper in your eyes. So I just ran to her, blinded and almost screaming, and she took it out so quickly--so easily!” “How?” I asked, very curious. “‘Why, you blessed child,’ she said, ‘you’ve got the wrong idea altogether. You do not have to think that there ever was such a God--for there wasn’t. Or such a happening--for there wasn’t. Nor even that this hideous false idea was believed by anybody. But only this--that people who are utterly ignorant will believe anything--which you certainly knew before.’” “Anyhow,” pursued Ellador, “she turned pale for a minute when I first said it.” This was a lesson to me. No wonder this whole nation of women was peaceful and sweet in expression--they had no horrible ideas. “Surely you had some when you began,” I suggested. “Oh, yes, no doubt. But as soon as our religion grew to any height at all we left them out, of course.” From this, as from many other things, I grew to see what I finally put in words. “Have you no respect for the past? For what was thought and believed by your foremothers?” “Why, no,” she said. “Why should we? They are all gone. They knew less than we do. If we are not beyond them, we are unworthy of them--and unworthy of the children who must go beyond us.” This set me thinking in good earnest. I had always imagined--simply from hearing it said, I suppose--that women were by nature conservative. Yet these women, quite unassisted by any masculine spirit of enterprise, had ignored their past and built daringly for the future. Ellador watched me think. She seemed to know pretty much what was going on in my mind. “It’s because we began in a new way, I suppose. All our folks were swept away at once, and then, after that time of despair, came those wonder children--the first. And then the whole breathless hope of us was for _their_ children--if they should have them. And they did! Then there was the period of pride and triumph till we grew too numerous; and after that, when it all came down to one child apiece, we began to really work--to make better ones.” “But how does this account for such a radical difference in your religion?” I persisted.