not have shown us the resurrection."

"Oh, I don't mind Him dyin'," said Pearl quickly. "Everybody has to
die, and when they've lived right and done the best they could for
every one, it is just glorious to die and go home. It's just like
people comin' home from college with their examination papers marked
high, and their certificates and medals to show how hard they worked;
or I guess it's more like soldiers comin' home all tired out, and
sunburnt, showing their scars--we can show our hands all hard with
work for other people, and our faces cheerful and patient. That's
what'll count up there, I guess. It's all right to die, but I can't
see why He had to die that way--it was terrible, and it wasn't comin'
to Him."

"Perhaps it was to show us how much He loved us," the teacher said
gently.

"He shows us that in lots of ways," Pearl said. "He says He loves us,
and ye can't live one day without feelin' that there's love in the
world, and I'm sure it didn't come from anywhere else but God--oh,
no, it didn't need, that to show us."

The teacher was looking at her in wonder.

"I tell you what to do, Pearl. Ask Mr. Burrell; he'll be able to tell
you."

After school that night Pearl opened the theological discussion
again.

"Mr. Donald," she said, "don't you think we should try to get some
one to preach here and have a Sunday-school? These children here,
except Lib. Cavers, don't know anything about the Bible. I've been
asking them about Easter Sunday. They don't know anything about it,
only it's a time to see how many eggs you can hold, and they think
that God is a bad word It would just be fine if we could have a
Sunday-school and learn verses. Our Jimmy got a black Testament
for fifty verses, said exactly like the book. You would be
superintendent, wouldn't you?"

Mr. Donald coloured painfully. "I don't know, Pearl--we'll see," he
said evasively.

That night when he went back to his boarding-place--the big brick
house on the hill--he was strangely disturbed and troubled. He had
told himself years ago that religion was a delusion, a will o' the
wisp. But there was something in Pearl's face and in her words that
seemed to contradict the logic of his reasoning.

Charles Donald was a man who tried hard to make a stoic of himself,
to convince himself that he was past feeling the stings of evil
fortune. He had suffered so deeply that he told himself that nothing
could ever hurt him again. A spiritual numbness had co