“Let me prophesy.  To-morrow’s papers will merely mention that the Bishop is in poor health, that he has been working too hard, and that he broke down last night.  The next mention, some days hence, will be to the effect that he is suffering from nervous prostration and has been given a vacation by his grateful flock.  After that, one of two things will happen:  either the Bishop will see the error of his way and return from his vacation a well man in whose eyes there are no more visions, or else he will persist in his madness, and then you may expect to see in the papers, couched pathetically and tenderly, the announcement of his insanity.  After that he will be left to gibber his visions to padded walls.”

“Now there you go too far!” I cried out.

“In the eyes of society it will truly be insanity,” he replied.  “What honest man, who is not insane, would take lost women and thieves into his house to dwell with him sisterly and brotherly?  True, Christ died between two thieves, but that is another story.  Insanity?  The mental processes of the man with whom one disagrees, are always wrong.  Therefore the mind of the man is wrong.  Where is the line between wrong mind and insane mind?  It is inconceivable that any sane man can radically disagree with one’s most sane conclusions.

“There is a good example of it in this evening’s paper.  Mary McKenna lives south of Market Street.  She is a poor but honest woman.  She is also patriotic.  But she has erroneous ideas concerning the American flag and the protection it is supposed to symbolize.  And here’s what happened to her.  Her husband had an accident and was laid up in hospital three months.  In spite of taking in washing, she got behind in her rent.  Yesterday they evicted her.  But first, she hoisted an American flag, and from under its folds she announced that by virtue of its protection they could not turn her out on to the cold street.  What was done?  She was arrested and arraigned for insanity.  To-day she was examined by the regular insanity experts.  She was found insane.  She was consigned to the Napa Asylum.”

“But that is far-fetched,” I objected.  “Suppose I should disagree with everybody about the literary style of a book.  They wouldn’t send me to an asylum for that.”

“Very true,” he replied.  “But such divergence of opinion would constitute no menace to society.  Therein lies the difference.  The divergence of opinion on the parts of Mary McKenna and the Bishop do menace society.  What if all the poor people should refuse to pay rent and shelter themselves under the American flag?  Landlordism would go crumbling.  The Bishop’s views are just as perilous to society.  Ergo, to the asylum with him.”

But still I refused to believe.

“Wait and see,” Ernest said, and I waited.

Next morning I sent out for all the papers.  So far Ernest was right.  Not a word that Bishop Morehouse had uttered was in print.  Mention was made in one or two of the papers that he had been overcome by his feelings.  Yet the platitudes of the speakers that followed him were reported at length.