He looked at me, almost impatiently as if to say: Do not compel me to
enforce silence on you!

"But, suppose," I went on, "and this, you know; is the more frequent
case, the man refuses to abstain. Would you then say it was more
Christian to allow him to become daily less Christian through his
unchristian conduct, than to relieve the woman of her suffering at the
expense of the spiritual benefit she thence derives? Why, in fact, do
you favour one case more than the other?"

"All question of relief," he replied, "is a matter for Caesar; it cannot
concern me."

There had come into his face a rigidity--as if I might hit it with my
questions till my tongue was tired, and it be no more moved than the
bench on which we were sitting.

"One more question," I said, "and I have done. Since the Christian
teaching is concerned with the spirit and not forms, and the thread in it
which binds all together and makes it coherent, is that of suffering----"

"Redemption by suffering," he put in.

"If you will--in one word, self-crucifixion--I must ask you, and don't
take it personally, because of what you told me of yourself: In life
generally, one does not accept from people any teaching that is not the
result of firsthand experience on their parts. Do you believe that this
Christian teaching of yours is valid from the mouths of those who have
not themselves suffered--who have not themselves, as it were, been