The McLarens were, by popular suffrage at Brightwood, “all to the good.”
One afternoon, the Reverend Bruce said to Doctor Merrick, as the latter sat by his invalid chair, visiting—not very professionally, but with a hope of hearing a few more Scotch stories: “Beloved, I’ll soon be out of here, and I’m just a bit anxious about my bill. My income is small, and my present balance at the bank, if there is one, would amuse you. Of course, I know what the hospital charges are, and I can manage to pay them. But I have been afraid to ask about your fee, thinking perhaps the shock wouldn’t be good for me. Speaking of the Scotch—what are you going to charge me?”
“Well—I’ll make you a proposition, dominie. You have given me a chance to patch your head. I’ll give you a chance to do something for my soul. And we’ll call it square. I’ll take it out in trade. How’s that?”
“It’s mighty generous,” rumbled McLaren, in a tone at least three added lines below the bass clef. “I’ll expect you to come in and attend my church, soon as I am in the running again.”
“Oh—do I have to go to your church for this treatment?”
“Well—I came to your hospital, didn’t I, for mine?”
“You win!” said Bobby submissively. “I’ll be there!”
Pursuant to his promise, he had gone to Grace Church on that fine May morning, after having telephoned the McLarens he was coming, and having accepted their invitation to return with them to their apartment, afterwards, for luncheon. Betty McLaren had quite enjoyed the sensation of presenting him to many of their friends. She had been very proud of Bruce’s performance in the pulpit. She was having a good day … Would Doctor Merrick have two lumps or three; cream or lemon; and wasn’t he surprised to see so many young people in the congregation? … Doctor Merrick would have one lump; neither cream nor lemon; and was it anything to be surprised at that young people went to church?
“Oh—quite!” replied Doctor McLaren, helping his guest to a portion of a delicious omelette. “That’s our one great satisfaction! You see—the students and the young business and professional people have outgrown the old traditions and are eager for an—shall I say an intellectual approach to religion. We have been trying to give it to them.”
“I noticed that,” said Bobby. “Your sermon was very scholarly; and they liked it, I am sure.”
“Well, doctor—if you don’t mind being helpfully candid with me, exactly how did it strike you—as a scientist?”
“Oh, I’m not much of a scientist. A surgeon doesn’t have to be a scientist—just a good mechanic.”
Betty McLaren protested with a laugh.
“Come now, Doctor Merrick! The very idea! You—not a scientist? We know better than that!”
“At all events, you have the scientific outlook—the scientific approach,” insisted Doctor McLaren. “Perhaps you noticed at what pains I was to avoid the old stock phrases of theology.”
“I fear I wouldn’t recognize them as such,” confessed Bobby. “But—what’s the matter with the old terminology?”
“Obsolete! Misleading! We’ll have to evolve a new vocabulary for religion, to make it rank with other subjects of interest. We’ve got to phrase it in modern terms; don’t you think so?” Doctor McLaren was eager for his guest’s approval.
“Perhaps,” agreed Bobby tentatively. “I don’t know. Whether people could learn any more about religion by changing its names for things of concern to it, I’m not sure. It just occurs to me—casting about at random for a parallel case—that the word ‘electricity’ means ‘amber.’ All that the ancients knew about electricity was that a chunk of amber, when rubbed with silk, would pick up a feather. Now that it has been developed until it will pick up a locomotive, electricity still means amber. They never went to the bother to change the name of it. Maybe they thought there was at least a pleasant sentiment in retaining the name. More likely, they never thought about it, at all. Too busy trying to make it work, I suppose.”
“Humph! That’s a new idea. Then you think it doesn’t make much difference about the phraseology of religion?”
“It wouldn’t—to me,” replied Bobby, hoping he had not too ardently objected to a pet theory of his host.
“Well—there seems to be a demand for a more adequate interpretation of theology. We are trying to be a little less dogmatic in our assertions and a little more honest. For instance—I think it’s ever so much better to say frankly that God is an hypothesis than to attempt to offer proofs which fail to stand up under their own ponderosity.”
Bobby was tardy with a rejoinder, and both McLarens silently quizzed him out of the tails of their eyes. Surely he ought at least to believe in the Deity as an hypothesis! … He observed that they waited.
“I’m afraid I don’t accept that,” he said at length, rather shyly.
“Oh—Doctor Merrick!” reproved Betty disappointedly. “You don’t mean to say that you do not believe in God, at all!”
“I mean that I do not think of God as an hypothesis.”
“But—my dear fellow,” exclaimed McLaren, “we really have no hard and fast proofs, you know!”
“Haven’t you?” asked Bobby quietly. “I have.”
The two forks in use by the McLaren family were simultaneously put down upon their plates.
“Er—how do you mean—proofs?” queried his host.
Bobby wished then that he had smilingly deferred to the minister’s theory. He had no relish for controversy. And this was no place for it, had he been no end a debater. Moreover, he knew he was not in a position to explain what he had called his proofs. Lamely he admitted that what he had considered sufficient evidence for the existence of God might satisfy no one but himself. He privately hoped the conversation might soon find safer going.
“You’re probably arguing from ‘design,’ ” McLaren suggested bookishly.
“Oh—probably,” said Bobby, with a gesture of dismissal.
“The whole business of institutionalized religion,” resumed McLaren, didactically, “demands reappraisal! It appals me to contemplate what
