That it is more blessed to give than to receive is a terse statement of a law scientifically demonstrable.  You all know how far more exquisite is the pleasure that comes from giving than that which comes from receiving.  Is not one who prefers to give then simply selfish with a greater wisdom, a finer skill for the result desired—­his own pleasure?  The man we call good is not less selfish than the man we call bad—­only wiser in the ways that bring his happiness—­riper in that divine sensitiveness to the feelings of his brother.  Selfish happiness is equally a law with all, though it send one of us to thieving and another to the cross.

“Ignorance of this primary truth has kept the world in spiritual darkness—­it has nurtured belief in sin—­in a devil, in a God that permits evil.  For when you tell me that my assertion is a mere quibble—­that it matters not whether we call a man unselfish or wisely selfish—­you fail to see that, when we understand this truth, there is no longer any sin.  ‘Sin’ is then seen to be but a mistaken notion of what brings happiness.  Last night’s burglar and your bishop differ not morally but intellectually—­one knowing surer ways of achieving his own happiness, being more sensitive to that oneness of the race which thrills us all in varying degrees.  When you know this—­that the difference is not moral but intellectual, self-righteousness disappears and with it a belief in moral difference—­the last obstacle to the realisation of our oneness.  It is in the church that this fiction of moral difference has taken its final stand.

“And not only shall we have no full realisation of the brotherhood of man until this inevitable, equal selfishness is understood, but we shall have no rational conception of virtue.  There will be no sound morality until it is taught for its present advantage to the individual, and not for what it may bring him in a future world.  Not until then will it be taught effectively that the well-being of one is inextricably bound up with the well-being of all; that while man is always selfish, his selfish happiness is still contingent on the happiness of his brother.”

The moment of coffee had come.  The Unitarian lighted a black cigar and avidly demanded more reasons why the Christian religion was immoral.

“Still for the reason that it separates,” continued Bernal, “separates not only hereafter but here.  We have kings and serfs, saints and sinners, soldiers to kill one another—­God is still a God of Battle.  There is no Christian army that may not consistently invoke your God’s aid to destroy any other Christian army—­none whose spiritual guides do not pray to God for help in the work of killing other Christians.  So long as you have separation hereafter, you will have these absurd divisions here.  So long as you preach a Saviour who condemns to everlasting punishment for disbelief, so long you will have men pointing to high authority for all their schemes of revenge and oppression here.