better than analysis the lines of thought on which he served his Creator.

Once, when she was thirteen, Joan had gone to an evening service at St.
Peter's, because a friend had dared her to do so. Her father was at sea and
she believed the delinquency could by no possibility reach his ears. But a
Luke Gospeler heard the dread tidings and Michael Tregenza was quickly
informed of his daughter's lapse. He accused Joan quietly enough, and she
confessed.

"Then you'm a damned maiden," he said, "'cause you sinned open-eyed."

He thought the matter over for a week, and finally an idea occurred to him.

"'Tis wi'in the power o' God to reach even you back," he declared to Joan,
"an' He's put in my mind that chastenin' might do it. A sore body's saved
many sowls 'fore now."

Whereupon he took his daughter into the little parlor, shut the door, and
then flogged her as he would have flogged a boy--only using his hard hand
instead of a stick. "Get thee behind her, Satan! Get thee behind her,
Satan! Get thee behind her, Satan!" he groaned with every blow, while Joan
grit her teeth and bore it as long as she could, then screamed and fainted.
That was how the truth about heaven and hell came to her. She had never
felt physical pain before, and eternal torment was merely an idea. From
that day, however, she was frightened and listened to her father gladly and
wept tears of thankfulness when, a month after her flogging, he explained
that he had wrestled with the Lord for her soul and how it had been borne
in upon him that she was saved alive. She had reached the age of seventeen
now, and felt quite confident upon the subject of eternity as became a
right Luke Gospeler. Unlike other women of the sect, however, and despite