her now in a better frame of mind. I am told that she is a very superior woman, and I am anxious to get her into the Church. If you could only manage to approach her on some sort of social level. I believe that the trouble with all of us Church people, the reason why we don't reach people of the humbler kind, is that we don't make our social plane broad enough to take them in. We assume too much superiority. They don't like it, and I can't blame them. When we bring ourselves to meeting them on terms of social equality we shall get them to share with us our religious blessings, and I'm afraid not before."
"Yes, dear."
She felt that the conversation was already drifting beyond her easy comprehension, and that the only thing for her to do was to acquiesce. Yet, notwithstanding her respect for her husband's social theories, the depths of which she was never quite able to comprehend, she could not help a feeling of revolt at the idea of associating, on terms of equality, with people of the cruder if not the baser sort, with such a person, for instance, as Mary Bradley, who ignored religion, and who had flouted the rector of Christ Church.
"And you know," added the rector, "she has been twice lately to our morning services."
"I know, but that doesn't necessarily make her congenial. Do you really mean, Robert, that we should treat these people—a person like Mrs. Bradley, for instance,—exactly as our equals?"
"Certainly! Why not? Christ was no respecter of persons."
"I know. And their husbands? And their children the same as our own? Should I, for instance, let Grace and Robbie play freely with the children on the street back of the rectory?"
"Those children are entitled to the benefit of the culture and good breeding of our own, and they can learn these things only by association."
