[_laughs, ERNEST wondering what's the joke_]
Oh, you're hopeless! [_Going._] I can't stand people who talk so much at breakfast.
Wait a minute. Sit down. Have a cigar. Let's talk about God. [_THEODORE stops smiling._] But I mean it. I'd like to have a religion myself.
I had an idea you took no stock in religion.
[_Takes the cigar. ERNEST holds a match for him._
Just what I thought, until ... well, I've made a discovery, a great discovery!
It makes all science look like a ... mere machine.
Well, if you feel so strongly about it ... better come to church after all!
I'm not talking about the Church--I'm talking about _religion_.
You're not talking about religion; you're talking about--love.
Certainly; the same thing, isn't it? I'm talking about the divine fire that glorifies life and perpetuates it--the one eternal thing we mortals share with God.... If _that_ isn't religious, what is? [_THEODORE smiles indulgently._] Tell me, Theodore--you know I wasn't allowed to go to church when young, and since then I've always worked on the holy Sabbath day, like yourself--does the Church still let innocent human beings think there's something inherently wrong about sex? [_THEODORE drops his eyes. ERNEST disgusted with him._] I see! Good people should drop their eyes even at the mention of the word.
Sex is a necessary evil, I admit, but----
Evil! The God-given impulse which accounts for you sitting there, for me sitting here? The splendid instinct which writes our poetry, builds our civilizations, founds our churches--the very heart and soul of life is evil. Really, Theodore, I don't know much about religion, but that strikes me as blasphemy against the Creator.
Very scientific, my boy, very modern; but the Church believed in marriage before Science was born.
As a sacrament of religion--and so do you!
Good! Then why practise and preach marriage as a sacrament of property? "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man--" Women are still goods and chattels to be given or sold, are they?
Then why keep on making them promise to "serve and obey"? Why marry them with a ring--the link of the ancient chain? [_He smiles._] In the days of physical force it was made of iron--now of gold. But it's still a chain, isn't it?