Sabbath stillness rested over the farm, and she
could hardly keep awake. Her head kept sinking nearer and nearer
her breast, and presently she dropped into a doze.

She was suddenly awakened by the sound of a voice just outside her
window. She could not see who the speaker was, but the voice was
strong and deep. A more beautiful voice she had never heard.

"I know, Halvor, that it doesn't seem reasonable to you that a
poor, uneducated blacksmith should have found the truth, when so
many learned men have failed," said the voice.

"I don't see how you can be so sure of that," Halvor questioned.

"It's Hellgum talking to Halvor," thought Karin, trying to close
the window, which she was unable to reach.

"It has been said, as you know," Hellgum went on, "that if somebody
strikes us on one cheek we must turn the other cheek also, and that
we should not resist evil, and other things of the same sort; all
of which none of us can live up to. Why, people would rob you of
your house and home, they'd steal your potatoes and carry off your
grain, if you failed to protect what was yours. I guess they'd take
the whole Ingmar Farm from you."

"Maybe you're right," Halvor admitted.

"Well, then, I suppose Christ didn't mean anything when He said all
that; He was just talking into the air, eh?"

"I don't know what you're driving at!" said Halvor.

"Now here's something to set you thinking," Hellgum continued. "We
are supposed to be very far advanced in our Christianity. There's
no one nowadays who steals, no one who commits murder or wrongs the
widow and the fatherless, and of course no one hates or persecutes
his neighbour any more, and it wouldn't occur to any of us, who
have such a good religion, to do any wrong!"

"There are many things that aren't just as they ought to be,"
drawled Halvor. He sounded sleepy, and anything but interested.

"Now if you had a threshing machine that wouldn't work, you'd find
out what was wrong with it. You wouldn't give yourself any rest
till you had discovered wherein it was faulty. But when you see
that it is simply impossible to get people to lead a Christian
life, shouldn't you try to find out whether there is anything the
matter with Christianity itself?"

"I can't believe there are any flaws in the teachings of Jesus,"
said Halvor.

"No, they were unquestionably sound from the start; but it may be
that they have become a little rusty, as it were, from neglect. In
any perfect mech