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 ing selfishly to improve his position, to increase his goods, always reaches out a grasping hand. Voltaire pictured faith as "deferential credulity." Burbank saw that incredulity may rob us of our smug complacence, but in recompense gives us a sense of sincerity in our efforts to arrive at the truth. The philosophy of the infidel, he knew, may not be the philosophy best suited to the masses, held in subjection by a tempting promise of good things to come, but to the thinker who wishes to tear aside the veil of false promises this philosophy must, after all, be the only acceptable one.

All this having been true to Burbank, if I caught his thought correctly, the great scientist's tolerant, yet withal inflexible, attitude toward those who were disparaging and excoriating him is entirely understandable.

When the Women's Christian Temperance Union of Santa Rosa called its meeting to pray for Burbank, he only smiled, as much as to say that prayer at least was harmless, even if it couldn't do any good.

Burbank had been a contributor to and a member of the organization for many years because he believed in its efforts toward bringing about prohibition. But he was not in the least perturbed when the very woman who had proposed him as an honorary life member five years ago joined in the call to save his soul. This call concluded with the following paragraph:

"All mothers and women who believe that irreparable injuries have been done to the cause of religion by the utterances of Luther