been taught them in the name of Christ! Where did scholastic theology
stand in such an hour as this? Did it offer easement from their
torture of mind and body? No. Strength to bear in patience their heavy
burden? No. Hope? Not of this life--nay, naught but the thread-worn,
undemonstrable promise of a life to come, if, indeed, they might
happily avoid the pangs of purgatory and the horrors of the quenchless
flames of hell! God, what had not the Church to answer for!

And yet, these ignorant children were but succumbing to the
evidence of their material senses--though small good it would do to
tell them so! Could they but know--as did Carmen--that rejection of
error and reception of truth meant life--ah, could they but know!
Could he himself but know--really _know_--that God is neither the
producer of evil, nor the powerless witness of its ravages--could
he but understand and prove that evil is not a self-existing
entity, warring eternally with God, what might he not accomplish!
For Jesus had said: "These signs"--the cure of disease, the rout of
death--"shall follow them that believe," that understand, that
know. Why could he not go down to those beds of torture and say
with the Christ: "Arise, for God hath made thee whole"? He knew
why--"without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that
cometh of God must believe"--must _know_--"that He is a rewarder of
them that diligently seek Him." The suffering victims in the town
below were asleep in a state of religious dullness. The task of
independent thinking was onerous to such as they. Gladly did they
leave it to the Church to do their thinking for them. And thus did
they suffer for the trust betrayed!

But truth is omnipotent, and "one with God is a majority." Jesus gave
few rules, but none more fundamental than that "with God all things
are possible." Was he, Jose, walking with God? If so, he might arise
and go down into the stricken town and bid its frightened children be
whole. If he fully recognized "the Father" as all-powerful,
all-good, and if he could clearly see and retain his grasp on the
truth that evil, the supposititious opposite of good, had neither
place nor power, except in the minds of mortals receptive to it--ah,
then--then----

A soft patter of little feet on the shales broke in upon his thought.
He turned and beheld Carmen coming through the night.

"Padre dear," she whispered, "why didn't you come and sleep in the
church with me?" She crept cl