“Then you have not protested?”

The Bishop shook his head.

“Then the Church is dumb to-day, as it was in the eighteenth century?”

The Bishop was silent, and for once Ernest forbore to press the point.

“And do not forget, whenever a churchman does protest, that he is discharged.”

“I hardly think that is fair,” was the objection.

“Will you protest?” Ernest demanded.

“Show me evils, such as you mention, in our own community, and I will protest.”

“I’ll show you,” Ernest said quietly.  “I am at your disposal.  I will take you on a journey through hell.”

“And I shall protest.”  The Bishop straightened himself in his chair, and over his gentle face spread the harshness of the warrior.  “The Church shall not be dumb!”

“You will be discharged,” was the warning.

“I shall prove the contrary,” was the retort.  “I shall prove, if what you say is so, that the Church has erred through ignorance.  And, furthermore, I hold that whatever is horrible in industrial society is due to the ignorance of the capitalist class.  It will mend all that is wrong as soon as it receives the message.  And this message it shall be the duty of the Church to deliver.”

Ernest laughed.  He laughed brutally, and I was driven to the Bishop’s defence.

“Remember,” I said, “you see but one side of the shield.  There is much good in us, though you give us credit for no good at all.  Bishop Morehouse is right.  The industrial wrong, terrible as you say it is, is due to ignorance.  The divisions of society have become too widely separated.”

“The wild Indian is not so brutal and savage as the capitalist class,” he answered; and in that moment I hated him.

“You do not know us,” I answered.  “We are not brutal and savage.”

“Prove it,” he challenged.

“How can I prove it . . . to you?” I was growing angry.

He shook his head.  “I do not ask you to prove it to me.  I ask you to prove it to yourself.”

“I know,” I said.

“You know nothing,” was his rude reply.

“There, there, children,” father said soothingly.

“I don’t care—­” I began indignantly, but Ernest interrupted.

“I understand you have money, or your father has, which is the same thing—­money invested in the Sierra Mills.”

“What has that to do with it?” I cried.

“Nothing much,” he began slowly, “except that the gown you wear is stained with blood.  The food you eat is a bloody stew.  The blood of little children and of strong men is dripping from your very roof-beams.  I can close my eyes, now, and hear it drip, drop, drip, drop, all about me.”