a moment, please!'

Richard Rodwell was an earnest young clergyman, who had ideas of his own
about things; and the task to which he was now summoned was very little
to his taste. He saw in Blund a man who had lived hideously and was now
concerned to avert his just punishment. He tried to believe that there
was some hope for such a wretch; but the attempt was not altogether
successful. He bent over the dying man and talked of mercy and
repentance and forgiveness. But the words did not come from his own
soul, and they did not comfort the soul of the man to whom they were
addressed.

'There's something else!' he gasped.

'There is nothing outside the mercy of God,' replied the vicar.

'It's in the Bible, what I mean,' returned the dying man.

'What is it?' asked Rodwell soothingly.

'It's a text, "Except a man be _born again_----" You know the words,
_Born again_. What does that mean?'

The doctor, in his professional capacity, had often seen a child draw
its first breath, and had been impressed by its utter pastlessness. It
had nothing to regret, nothing to forget. Everything was before it;
nothing behind. And here was a text that seemed to promise such an
experience a second time! To be _born again_! What was it to be _born
again_? The dying doctor asked his insistent question repeatedly, but
the vicar was out of his depth. He floundered pitifully. At last the
doctor, to whom every moment was precious beyond all price, lost
patience with the hesitating minister and changed the form of his
question. Looking fixedly into his visitor's eyes, he exclaimed:

'Tell me, have _you_ been _born again_?' Rodwell hung his head in
silence, and the voice from the bed went on.

'Have you ever known in your life,' he asked, 'a moment when you felt
that a great change happened to you? Are you pretending? Have you ever
been conscious of _a new birth_ in your soul?'

The vicar fenced with the question, but it was of no avail. The dying
man raised himself suddenly on an elbow. 'You can't help me!' he cried
angrily. He seized Rodwell's wrist and held it tightly, fiercely. As he
spoke, the fingers tightened their grasp, and he bent Rodwell's hand
down to the bed, as it were for emphasis.

'You don't know,' he cried. 'You're pretending. The words you say are
words for the living. I am a dying man. Have you the same message for
the living and the dying? Have I a lifetime before me in which to work
out repentance? You can't help me!