working, although in a lesser degree than formerly, to restore this man
before his eyes. Bart, who had appeared shrunken, trembling, and
watery-eyed, was pulling himself together with some strength that he had
got from somewhere, and was standing up again ready to play a man's
part. The preacher did not understand why. There seemed to him to have
been nothing but failure in the interview. He made one more effort; he
put the last stone in his sling. Toyner had just spoken of the
sacrifice of Calvary, and to the preacher it seemed that he set it at
naught, because he was claiming salvation for those who mocked as well
as for those who believe.

"Think of it," he said; "you make wrong but an inferior kind of right.
You take away the reason for the one great Sacrifice, and in this you
are slighting Him who suffered for you."

Then he made, with all the force and eloquence he could, the personal
appeal of the Christ whom he felt to be slighted.

"You have spoken of the sufferings of lost and wretched men," he went
on; "think of His sufferings! You have spoken of your loneliness; think
of His loneliness!"

Then suddenly Bart Toyner made a gesture as a slave might who casts off
the chains of bondage. The appeal to which he was listening was not for
him, but for some man whom the preacher's imagination had drawn in his
place, who did not appropriate the great Sacrifice and seek to live in
its power. He did not now seek to explain again that the death of Christ
was to him as an altar, the point in human thought where always the fire
of the divine life descends upon the soul self-offered in like
sacrifice. He had tried to explain this; now he tried no more, but he