into a calmer frame of mind you will readily find it; don't you think
we had better retire for to-night? To-morrow you will have time to
look up this entire matter."

"I suppose we had, as I see no way to satisfy myself except by carefully
studying the whole book of Genesis, and I am very doubtful whether I
will be able to find what I want even there, for I have often noticed
that when a man once begins to doubt the truth of the Bible, he usually
ends up as an unbeliever. God grant that this may not happen to me."

"O, I have no fear of that," said his wife; "you are too firm a believer
in God to ever doubt anything in the Bible."

"I hope so, wife, yet I must admit that I am beginning to doubt the
genuineness of the second narrative, and for the last fifteen years
I have preached the gospel from the standpoint of this second or dust
creation. In fact, I could not preach otherwise, as it would be
impossible for me to make my congregation believe that they were wholly
spiritual, and that they have no material body, had I desired."

"Why, James, of course we have a material body, don't we have to feed,
clothe, and take care of it?"

"That is the way I always believed, but if Walter's idea is correct
in regard to that mist, or misapprehension, then the first chapter of
Genesis is correct, and in that case we could not possibly have a
material body, but only think we have, and because we believe what we
think, it would seem so to us. Wife, I am half inclined to think this
is the solution, but how can I prove to others, or even myself, that
my body is spiritual when it is so very material?"