But Burbank evidently had consulted the dictionary before employing the word "infidel" in the first place, or in any event he peeked into its confiding pages after the first storm clouds began to break.
He had found that an agnostic is one who professes ignorance as to the beginning of things and the power behind them. He had found that an atheist is one who denies the existence of God. And he had found, in Webster's New International Dictionary that an infidel is:
1. In respect to a given religion, one who is an unbeliever; a disbeliever; especially a non-Christian or one opposing the truth or authoritativeness of the Christian Church.
2. One who does not believe (in something understood or implied).
Thus the harried, lovable old man, met his well-wishers with unflinching eye, and was able to say: "I am an infidel. I know what an infidel is, and that's what I am."
I heard these words with keen relish, for doubtless it would have gone hard with me had Burbank squirmed out of an unpleasant situation by declaring what so many wanted him to declare—that he had been misquoted, that his sentiments had been garbled and distorted as the words and deeds of Christ himself.
II
I had been sent to Santa Rosa to quiz Burbank as to his theories on immortality and reincarnation. Burbank had that day been quoted
