as her father
was in the habit of doing when an adversary had made some broad-hearted
statement which had baffled him.

"Some of you give us a little more charity than others; but what do you
mean by Christianity? You ask us to believe what is incredible. WHY do
you believe in the resurrection: What reason have you for thinking it
true?"

She expected him to go into the evidence question, to quote the number
of Christ's appearances, to speak of the five hundred witnesses of whom
she was weary of hearing. Her mind was proof against all this; what
could be more probable than that a number of devoted followers should be
the victims of some optical delusion, especially when their minds were
disturbed by grief. Here was a miracle supported on one side by the
testimony of five hundred and odd spectators all longing to see their
late Master, and contradicted on the other side by common sense and the
experience of the remainder of the human race during thousands of years!
She looked full at Brian, a hard yet almost exultant expression in her
eyes, which spoke more plainly than words her perfect conviction:

"You can't set your evidences against my counter-evidences! You can't
logically maintain that a few uneducated men are to have more weight
than all the united experience of mankind."

Never would she so gladly have believed in the doctrine of immortality
as now, yet with characteristic honesty and resoluteness she set herself
into an attitude of rigid defense, lest through strong desire or mere
bodily weariness she should drift into the acceptance of what might be,
what indeed she considered to be error. But to her surprise, half to her
disappointment, Brian did not even mention the evidences. She had braced
herself up to withstand arguments drawn from the five hundred brothers,
but the preparation was useless.

"I believe in the resurrection," said Brian, "because I cannot doubt
Jesus Christ. He is the most perfectly lovable and trustable being
I know, or can conceive of knowing. He said He should rise again, I
believe that He did rise. He was perfectly truthful, therefore He could
not mislead; He KNEW, therefore He could not be misled."

"We do not consider Him to be all that you assert," said Erica. "Nor do
His followers make one inclined to think that either He or His teaching
were so perfect as you try to make out. You are not so hard-hearted as
some of them--"

She broke off, seeing a look of pain on her compa