to swallow the imitations of life, and then turned it back again into a
rod, to show that nothing was beyond his power."

"Did you see the thing done?" questioned a young skeptic, running his
tongue into his cheek in a skillful way, and distorting his whole face
with a disagreeable leer. He began to suspect that he was being cheated
into listening to a Bible story.

Mrs. Roberts was prompt with her answer:--

"Oh, no, I did not, neither did I see the great fire that you had in
this city about a year ago. At that time I was a thousand miles away;
and it so happens that I have never talked with any person who did see
it, yet I know there was a great fire, and many buildings were burned,
and lives lost. It has been proved to me."

"Oh, well," said skeptic number two, while number one retired into
silence to speculate over this answer, "fires are common enough things;
anybody can know that they happen; but it ain't such a common affair to
see a stick turn into a serpent and swallow up other serpents. I've seen
them fellows make things that looked like snakes, myself; I could most
swear to it that I'd seen them wriggle; but they never did no
_swallowing_."

"That is, they did not give unmistakable signs that they were alive. But
do you think it too strange a thing for God to do? Surely he can make
life! How is it that you are here, breathing, talking, thinking, if
there is no power anywhere to make life?"

"Oh, I came from a tadpole," said the boastful young scientist, putting