She said she couldn’t talk about the difference very intelligently, not being familiar with other religions, but that theirs seemed simple enough. Their great Mother Spirit was to them what their own motherhood was--only magnified beyond human limits. That meant that they felt beneath and behind them an upholding, unfailing, serviceable love--perhaps it was really the accumulated mother-love of the race they felt--but it was a Power. “Just what is your theory of worship?” I asked her. “Worship? What is that?” I found it singularly difficult to explain. This Divine Love which they felt so strongly did not seem to ask anything of them--“any more than our mothers do,” she said. “But surely your mothers expect honor, reverence, obedience, from you. You have to do things for your mothers, surely?” “Oh, no,” she insisted, smiling, shaking her soft brown hair. “We do things _from_ our mothers--not _for_ them. We don’t have to do things _for_ them--they don’t need it, you know. But we have to live on--splendidly--because of them; and that’s the way we feel about God.” I meditated again. I thought of that God of Battles of ours, that Jealous God, that Vengeance-is-mine God. I thought of our world-nightmare--Hell. “You have no theory of eternal punishment then, I take it?” Ellador laughed. Her eyes were as bright as stars, and there were tears in them, too. She was so sorry for me. “How could we?” she asked, fairly enough. “We have no punishments in life, you see, so we don’t imagine them after death.” “Have you _no_ punishments? Neither for children nor criminals--such mild criminals as you have?” I urged. “Do you punish a person for a broken leg or a fever? We have preventive measures, and cures; sometimes we have to ‘send the patient to bed,’ as it were; but that’s not a punishment--it’s only part of the treatment,” she explained. Then studying my point of view more closely, she added: “You see, we recognize, in our human motherhood, a great tender limitless uplifting force--patience and wisdom and all subtlety of delicate method. We credit God--our idea of God--with all that and more. Our mothers are not angry with us--why should God be?” “Does God mean a person to you?” This she thought over a little. “Why--in trying to get close to it in our minds we personify the idea, naturally; but we certainly do not assume a Big Woman somewhere, who is God. What we call God is a Pervading Power, you know, an Indwelling Spirit, something inside of us that we want more of. Is your God a Big Man?” she asked innocently. “Why--yes, to most of us, I think. Of course we call it an Indwelling Spirit just as you do, but we insist that it is Him, a Person, and a Man--with whiskers.” “Whiskers? Oh yes--because you have them! Or do you wear them because He does?” “On the contrary, we shave them off--because it seems cleaner and more comfortable.” “Does He wear clothes--in your idea, I mean?”