We are sorely in need, here in England to-day, of the Greek spirit of Pantheism, which found God in life and art and nature, 'as well as in sorrow and renunciation and death." "But it is in sorrow and renunciation and death that we need Him; and you, who have always had everything you want, can not understand this: no more could the Pagans and the Royalists; but the early Christians and the persecuted Puritans could." "Puritanism has much to answer for in England," said Elisabeth; "we have to thank Puritanism for teaching men that only by hurting themselves can they please their Maker, and that God has given them tastes and hopes and desires merely in order to mortify the same.

And it is all false--utterly false.

The God of the Pagan is surely a more merciful Being than the God of the Puritan." "A more indulgent Being, perhaps, but not necessarily a more merciful one, Elisabeth.

I disagree with the Puritans on many points, but I can not help admitting that their conception of God was a fine one, even though it erred on the side of severity.

The Pagan converted the Godhead into flesh, remember; but the Puritan exalted manhood into God." "Still, I never could bear the Puritans," Elisabeth went on; "they turned the England of Queen Elizabeth--the most glorious England the world has ever known--into one enormous Nonconformist Conscience; and England has never been perfectly normal since.