owning books. He had been too poor to buy many, and the conditions of
canvassing about among one's parishioners which the thrifty Book Concern
imposes upon those who would have without buying, had always repelled
him. Now, suddenly, as he moved along the two shelves, he felt ashamed
at their beggarly showing.

"The Land and the Book," in three portly volumes, was the most
pretentious of the aids which he finally culled from his collection.
Beside it he laid out "Bible Lands," "Rivers and Lakes of Scripture,"
"Bible Manners and Customs," the "Genesis and Exodus" volume of Whedon's
Commentary, some old numbers of the "Methodist Quarterly Review," and a
copy of "Josephus" which had belonged to his grandmother, and had
seen him through many a weary Sunday afternoon in boyhood. He glanced
casually through these, one by one, as he took them down, and began to
fear that they were not going to be of so much use as he had thought.
Then, seating himself, he read carefully through the thirteen chapters
of Genesis which chronicle the story of the founder of Israel.

Of course he had known this story from his earliest years. In almost
every chapter he came now upon a phrase or an incident which had served
him as the basis for a sermon. He had preached about Hagar in the
wilderness, about Lot's wife, about the visit of the angels, about the
intended sacrifice of Isaac, about a dozen other things suggested by the
ancient narrative. Somehow this time it all seemed different to him.
The people he read about were altered to his vision. Heretofore a poetic
light had shone about them, where indeed they had not glowed in a halo
of sanctification. Now, by some chance, this light was gone, and he saw
them instead as untutored and unwashed barbarians, filled with animal
lusts and ferocities, struggling by violence and foul chicanery to
secure a foothold in a country which did not belong to them--all rude