Then the preacher strove in words to show him the greatness of his
error, and why he could not hold to it and live in the victory which
faith gives. It was no narrow or weak view that the preacher took of the
universe and God's scheme for its salvation; for he too lived at a time
when men were learning more of the love of God, and he too had spoken
with God. The hard outline of his creed had grown luminous, fringed with
the divine light from beyond, as the bars of prison windows grow
dazzling and fade when the prisoner looks at the sun. All that the
preacher said was wise and strong, and the only reason he failed to
convince was that Toyner felt that the thought in which his own
storm-tossed soul had anchored was a little wiser and stronger--only a
little, for there was not a great difference between them, after all.

"I take in all that you say, sir; but you see I can't help feeling sure
that it's true that God is living with us as much and as true when we're
in the worst sort of sin, and the greater sin that it brings--for the
punishment of sin is more and more sin--and being sure, I know that
everything else that is true will come to fit in with it, though I may
not be able rightly to put it in now, and what won't come to fit in with
it can't be true."

The preacher perceived that the evil which he had set himself to slay
was giantlike in strength. He chose him smooth stones for his sling.
His heart was growing heavy with fear of failure, his spirit within him
still raised its face heavenward in unceasing prayer. He began to tell
the history of God's ways with man from the first. He spoke of Abraham.
He urged that the great strength had always come to men who had trusted
God's word against reason and against sight. And he saw then that for
the first time Toyner raised up his head and seemed stirred with a