NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. That's what is so dreadful about the Churches. They divide by declaring that they possess the full indubitable and infallible truth. They say: "It has pleased us and the Holy Ghost." That began at the time of the first Council of the Apostles. They then began to maintain that they had the full and _exclusive_ truth. You see, if I say there is a God: the first cause of the Universe, everyone can agree with me; and _such_ an acknowledgment of God will unite us; but if I say there is a God: Brahma, or Jehovah, or a Trinity, such a God divides us. Men wish to unite, and to that end devise all means of union, but neglect the one indubitable means of union--the search for truth! It is as if people in an enormous building, where the light from above shone down into the centre, tried to unite in groups around lamps in different corners, instead of going towards the central light, where they would naturally all be united. PRIEST. And how are the people to be guided--without any really definite truth? NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. That's what is terrible! Each _one_ of us has to save _his own_ soul, and has to do God's work _himself_, but instead of that we busy ourselves saving _other people_ and teaching _them_. And what do we teach them? We teach them now, at the end of the nineteenth century, that God created the world in six days, then caused a flood, and put all the animals in an ark, and all the rest of the horrors and nonsense of the Old Testament. And then that Christ ordered everyone to be baptized with water; and we make them believe in all the absurdity and meanness of an Atonement essential to salvation; and then that he rose up into the heavens which do not really exist, and there sat down at the right hand of the Father. We have got used to all this, but really it is dreadful! A child, fresh and ready to receive all that is good and true, asks us what the world is, and what its laws are; and we, instead of revealing to him the teaching of love and truth that has been given to us, carefully ram into his head all sorts of horrible absurdities and meannesses, ascribing them all to God. Is that not terrible? It is as great a crime as man can commit. And we--you and your Church--do this! Forgive me! PRIEST. Yes, if one looks at Christ's teaching from a rationalistic point of view, it is so. NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Whichever way one looks, it is so. [Pause]. Enter Alexándra Ivánovna. Priest bows to take his leave. ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. Good-bye, Father. He will lead you astray. Don't you listen to him. PRIEST. No. Search the Scriptures! The matter is too important, as a matter of fact, to be--let's say--neglected. [Exit]. ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. Really, Nicholas, you have no pity on him! Though he is a priest, he is still only a boy, and can have no firm convictions or settled views.... NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Give him time to settle down and petrify in falsehood? No! Why should I? Besides, he is a good, sincere man.