ELINOR: Then I will state what to me are the facts of religion. I believe that I personally, and each one of us, have received from God, for the term of our sojourn on earth, a spark of Himself, and, since He has had the intelligence to construct this planet and a number of others, He cannot be so wholly wanting in logic as deliberately to throw this spark of Himself into temptation, and then deliberately to punish it for falling. If I believed God capable of that I should utterly despise Him. JOHN: It sounds mean. ELINOR: Of course. Now think a moment. Each unit being a part of the eternal scheme, the soul of each unit being a spark of the Divine Consciousness, it follows surely that the basis of all religion is that we must not soil our souls--not from the fear of hell or hope of heaven, but because they, being lent by God, must return to Him untarnished. The law of cause and effect takes care of the punishments or rewards. We bring each upon ourselves by our own actions; setting in motion an inevitable machinery producing consequence, as surely as when we thrust our hand into the fire it is burnt. JOHN: That sounds all right; go on! ELINOR: You see, then, our setting in motion this law can have nothing to do with the anger or approval or complacency of God. “Be good, and you will go to heaven: behave evilly, and you will go to hell”--one was taught. Reward and punishment--personal gain or personal pain--which gets it back to pure selfishness. JOHN: Then you would take away these strong motives to influence human conduct? You _are_ getting on to a high plane! ELINOR: I began by saying we were talking of religion; you seem to consider we are discussing a business concern. JOHN: So it is--put it how you will. ELINOR: I deny that from my point, but I admit it if you are going to traffic with rewards and punishments. JOHN: Then you mean to tell me that each unit is always to behave in the purest manner and do his level best simply to return to God at death an untarnished soul? ELINOR: Certainly. JOHN: But you would do away with all priestcraft, all politics, all society! ’Pon my word, this is worse than Socialism. You know I never bargained for that! ELINOR: Nothing of the kind! The basic principle is that God is omnipotent. Granted this, and the poorest intelligence might then credit Him with having the best of all the attributes with which He has endowed mankind, whom he created--chief of these being common sense. JOHN: Go on. ELINOR: It is hardly likely, then, that He is perpetrating a colossal joke upon His creation by making the whole system experimental. It is conceivable that a brain which could evolve the intricate organism of a minute ant might be far-seeing enough to devise an immutable law which, when our evolution is sufficiently advanced, we shall be able to perceive, and to fall in with its action. JOHN: We are all as yet struggling in the dark, then?