But she never looks at him with such intensity of devotion as when he
says anything about the soul and the soul's atmosphere, religion.
Women are twice as religious as men;--all the world knows that. Whether
they are any better, in the eyes of Absolute Justice, might be
questioned; for the additional religious element supplied by sex hardly
seems to be a matter of praise or blame. But in all common aspects they
are so much above us that we get most of our religion from them,--from
their teachings, from their example,--above all, from their pure
affections.
Now this poor little Iris had been talked to strangely in her childhood.
Especially she had been told that she hated all good things,--which every
sensible parent knows well enough is not true of a great many children,
to say the least. I have sometimes questioned whether many libels on
human nature had not been a natural consequence of the celibacy of the
clergy, which was enforced for so long a period.
The child had met this and some other equally encouraging statements as
to her spiritual conditions, early in life, and fought the battle of
spiritual independence prematurely, as many children do.
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