strangely.

"With all my life--and with all my strength!"

Meynell's gaze was fixed intently on his questioner. The night-light in
the basin on the farther side of the room threw the strong features into
shadowy relief, illumining the yearning kindliness of the eyes.

"What made tha believe in Him?"

"My own life--my own struggles--and sins--and sufferings," said
Meynell, stooping toward the sick man, and speaking each word with an
intensity behind which lay much that could never be known to his
questioner. "A good man, Bateson, put it once in this way, 'There is
something in me that asks something of me.' That's easy to understand,
isn't it? If a man wants to be filthy, or drunken, or cruel, there is
always a voice within--it may be weak or it may be strong--that asks of
him to be--instead--pure and sober and kind. And perhaps he denies the
Voice, refuses it--talks it down--again and again. Then the joy in his
life dies out bit by bit, and the world turns to dust and ashes. Every
time that he says No to the Voice he is less happy--he has less power of
being happy. And the voice itself dies away--and death comes. But now,
suppose he turns to the Voice and says 'Lead me--I follow!' And suppose
he obeys, like a child stumbling. Then every time he stretches and bends
his poor weak will so as to give _It_ what it asks, his heart is happy;
and strength comes--the strength to do more and do better. _It_ asks him
to love--to love men and women, not with lust, but with pure love; and as
he obeys, as he loves--he _knows_--he knows that it is God asking, and
that God has come to him and abides with him. So when death overtakes him
he trusts himself to God as he would to his best friend."