"I am sick of my life. I have sought leadership and have not found it. Oh
Father! Send down to men a new Christ, one to get hold of us, a modern
Christ with a pipe in his mouth who will swear and knock us about so that
we vermin who pretend to be made in Thy image will understand. Let him go
into churches and into courthouses, into cities, and into towns like this,
shouting, 'Be ashamed! Be ashamed of your cowardly concern over your
snivelling souls!' Let him tell us that never will our lives, so miserably
lived, be repeated after our bodies lie rotting in the grave."

A sob broke from his lips and a lump came into Sam's throat.

"Oh Father! help us men of Caxton to understand that we have only this,
our lives, this life so warm and hopeful and laughing in the sun, this
life with its awkward boys full of strange possibilities, and its girls
with their long legs and freckles on their noses, that are meant to carry
life within themselves, new life, kicking and stirring, and waking them at
night."

The voice of the prayer broke. Wild sobs took the place of speech.
"Father!" shouted the broken voice, "I have taken a life, a man that moved
and talked and whistled in the sunshine on winter mornings; I have
killed."

* * * * *

The voice inside the jail became inaudible. Silence, broken by low sobs
from the jail, fell on the little dark alley and the listening men began
going silently away. The lump in Sam's throat grew larger. Tears stood in
his eyes. He went with Telfer and Valmore out of the alley and into the