Elisabeth's mood changed at once, and her face grew serious. "I want to teach people that they were sent into the world to be happy, and not to be miserable; and that there is no virtue in turning their backs to the sunshine and choosing to walk in the shade. I want to teach people that the world is beautiful, and that it is only a superficial view that finds it common and unclean. I want to teach people that human nature is good and not evil, and that life is a glorious battlefield and not a sordid struggle. In short, I want to teach people the dignity of themselves; and there is no grander lesson." "Except, perhaps, the unworthiness of themselves," suggested Christopher. "No, no, Chris; you are wrong to be so hard and cynical. Can't you understand how I am longing to help the men and women I see around me, who are dying for want of joy and beauty in their lives? It is the old struggle between Hellenism and Hebraism--between happiness and righteousness. We are sorely in need, here in England to-day, of the Greek spirit of Pantheism, which found God in life and art and nature, 'as well as in sorrow and renunciation and death." "But it is in sorrow and renunciation and death that we need Him; and you, who have always had everything you want, can not understand this: no more could the Pagans and the Royalists; but the early Christians and the persecuted Puritans could." "Puritanism has much to answer for in England," said Elisabeth; "we have to thank Puritanism for teaching men that only by hurting themselves can they please their Maker, and that God has given them tastes and hopes and desires merely in order to mortify the same. And it is all false--utterly false. The God of the Pagan is surely a more merciful Being than the God of the Puritan." "A more indulgent Being, perhaps, but not necessarily a more merciful one, Elisabeth. I disagree with the Puritans on many points, but I can not help admitting that their conception of God was a fine one, even though it erred on the side of severity. The Pagan converted the Godhead into flesh, remember; but the Puritan exalted manhood into God." "Still, I never could bear the Puritans," Elisabeth went on; "they turned the England of Queen Elizabeth--the most glorious England the world has ever known--into one enormous Nonconformist Conscience; and England has never been perfectly normal since. Besides, they discovered that nature, and art, and human affection, which are really revelations of God, were actually sins against Him. As I said before, I can never forgive the Puritans for eradicating the beauty from holiness, and for giving man the spirit of heaviness in place of the garment of praise."