Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/213

 "Well," I said, "if the average American registers no emotion about the Apostolic Church, we can't use that in a case like this, can we? We've got to fall back on our really common bonds of union—like our common belief in modern plumbing, health, youth, the athletic life, education, publicity, automobiling."

"Popular elements, anyway," said Willys. "Automobiling as a substitute for which of the Thirty-nine Articles, Professor?" I glanced to see if Cornelia were listening; but she was plucking at a holly wreath in the window and seemed intent on the street.

"It is a vital element of our popular religion," I insisted, "and by no means so absurd a substitute as you suppose. One has got to take together, you see, this whole group of genuine popular beliefs. Next one asks every honest average man if he doesn't agree that these things are what he wants and believes in, and that the group of them expresses what our modern civilization wants and believes in. Then one turns on the average man and says: 'This, sir, is your effective Shorter Catechism; and you've got to junk whiskey as your national drink, because it is just flatly incompatible with the general distribution of