"Yes, ma'am--at least partly."

"Well?"

"Will you tell me first whether you were satisfied with Mr. Rackstraw's teaching? I know you were there."

"I was quite satisfied."

"Then I don't see reason for saying anything about it."

"If I am wrong, you ought to try to set me right!"

"The prophet Elisha would have done no good by throwing his salt into the running stream. He cast it, you will remember, into the spring!"

"I do not understand you."

"There is no use in persuading a person to change an opinion."

"Why not?"

"Because the man is neither the better nor the worse for it. If you had told me you were distressed to hear a man in authority speak as Mr.

Rackstraw spoke concerning a being you loved, I would have tried to comfort you by pointing out how false it was. But if you are content to hear G.o.d so represented, why should I seek to convince you of what is valueless to you? Why offer you to drink what your heart is not thirsting after? Would you love G.o.d more because you found He was not what you were quite satisfied He should be?"

"Do tell me more plainly what you mean?"

"You must excuse me. I have said all I will. I can not reason in defense of G.o.d. It seems blasphemy to argue that His nature is not such as no honorable man could love in another man."

"But if the Bible says so?"

"If the Bible said so, the Bible would be false. But the Bible does not say so."

"How is it then that it seems to say so?"

"Because you were taught falsely about Him before you desired to know Him."

"But I am capable of judging now!"

Andrew was silent.

"Am I not?" insisted Alexa.

"Do you desire to know G.o.d?" said Andrew.

"I think I do know Him."

"And you think those things true?"

"Yes."

"Then we are where we were, and I say no more."

"You are not polite."

"I can not help it. I must let you alone to believe about G.o.d what you can. You will not be blamed for not believing what you can not."

"Do you mean that G.o.d never punishes any one for what He can not help?"

"a.s.suredly."

"How do you prove that?"

"I will not attempt to prove it. If you are content to think He does, if it do not trouble you that your G.o.d should be unjust, go on thinking so until you are made miserable by it, then I will pour out my heart to deliver you."

She was struck, not with any truth in what he said, but with the evident truthfulness of the man himself. Right or wrong, there was that about him--a certain radiance of conviction--which certainly was not about Mr.

Rackstraw.

"The things that can be shaken," said Andrew, as if thinking with himself, "may last for a time, but they will at length be shaken to pieces, that the things which can not be shaken may show what they are.

Whatever we call religion will vanish when we see G.o.d face to face."

For awhile they went brushing through the heather in silence.

"May I ask you one question, Mr. Ingram?" said Alexa.

"Surely, ma'am! Ask me anything you like."

"And you will answer me?"

"If I am at liberty to answer you I will."

"What do you mean by being at liberty? Are you under any vow?"

"I am under the law of love. I am bound to do nothing to hurt. An answer that would do you no good I will not give."

"How do you know what will or will not do me good?"

"I must use what judgment I have."

"Is it true, then, that you believe G.o.d gives you whatever you ask?"

"I have never asked anything of Him that He did not give me."

"Would you mind telling me anything you have asked of Him?"

"I have never yet required to ask anything not included in the prayer, 'Thy will be done.'"

"That will be done without your praying for it."

"Pardon me; I do not believe it will be done, to all eternity, without my praying for it. Where first am I accountable that His will should be done? Is it not in myself? How is His will to be done in me without my willing it? Does He not want me to love what He loves?--to be like Himself?--to do His will with the glad effort of my will?--in a word, to will what He wills? And when I find I can not, what am I to do but pray for help? I pray, and He helps me."

"There is nothing strange in that!"