two at a time. "That's pretty near free-thinking, isn't it?" a
clergyman, to whom I tried to explain myself, once said to me. "No," I
replied; "but it _is_ pretty near thinking _free_."

To think freely about God became a first necessity; to think simply a
second one. The Universal Father had been almost lost to me behind veil
after veil of complexities. The approaches to Him seemed to have been
made so roundabout, requiring so many intermediaries. Long before I had
dared to think of what I may call emancipation, the "scheme of
salvation," as it was termed, had struck me as an excessively
complicated system of machinery, considering the millions upon millions
who had need of it. In theory you were told, according to St. Paul, to
"come boldly before the throne of the heavenly grace," but in practice
you were expected to do it timidly.

You were expected to do it timidly because the pigeon-holed Caucasian
God was represented--unconsciously perhaps--as difficult, ungenial,
easily offended. He measured your blindness and weakness by the
standard of His own knowledge and almightiness. A puritan God, extremely
preoccupied with morals as some people saw them, He was lenient,
apparently, to the narrow-minded, the bitter of tongue, and the
intolerant in heart. He was not generous. He was merciful only when you
paid for His mercy in advance. To a not inconsiderable degree He was the
hard Caucasian business man, of whom He was the reflection, only
glorified and crowned.

It will be evident, of course, that I am not speaking of "the Father" of
the New Testament, nor of the official teaching of any church or
theology. To the rank and file of Caucasians "the Father" of the New
Testament is very little known, while the official teaching of churches