s
father had tried to do his duty by him and his mother.

He recalled the words which he had spoken to the chaplain who had
visited him one day. He had told this man that if his father would
confess his evil deeds and seek to make atonement, he might believe in
God, in Providence. It was a poor thing to say after all. God, if
there was a God, must not be judged by poor little paltry standards.
The God Who made all the worlds, who controlled the infinite universe,
Who was behind all things, before all things, in all things, through
all things--that God must have ways beyond his poor little
comprehension. But was there such a Being? Or was everything the
result of a blind fate, a great mysterious something which was unknown
and unknowable, a force that had no feeling, no thought, no care for
the creatures who crawled upon the face of this tiny world?

Then the great Future stared him in the face. Was this life the end
and the end-all? Could it be that he, who could think and feel, who
had such infinite hope and longings and yearnings, would die when he
left the body? After all, was not Epictetus, the old Greek slave,
right when he said that the body was only something which he carried
around with him, and that his soul was something eternal which the
world could never touch. If that were so, there must be a great
spiritual realm into which he had never entered.

He thought of the opening words of the Old Testament: "In the beginning
God----" It was one of the most majestic sentences in the literature
of the world, sublime, almost infinite in its grandeur. Then he
remembered the words of Jesus. Years had passed since he had given
attention to these things, yet the memory of the words he had learnt as
a boy was with him now. What a wonderful story it was! What a Life,
too! The mind of Jesus had pierced the night like stars. He had torn
to pieces the flimsy sophistries of the age in which He had lived, and
looked into the very heart of things. What a great compassion He had
for the poor, how tender He was to the sinning. Yes, He understood, He
understood. And what a death He had died, too. He might have escaped
death, but He had died believing that by dying He would enrich, glorify
the life of the world. In a sense it was illogical, but there was a
deeper logic which he eventually saw. After all, it was the death of
Jesus that made Him live in the minds and hearts of untold millions
during nineteen c