sake, though it does make him very glad. To give up your way for his is
to die for him; and, when any one will do that, then he is able to do
everything for him; for then, and not till then, he gets such a hold of
him that he can lift him up, and set him down beside himself. That's
how my father used to teach me, and now I see it for myself to be true."

"It's all very grand, no doubt; but it ain't nowhere, you know. It's
all in your own head, and nowhere else. You don't, you _can't_
positively believe all that!"

"So much, at least, that I live in the strength and hope it gives me,
and order my ways according to it."

"Why didn't you teach my wife so?"

"I tried, but she didn't care to think. I could not get any further
with her. She has had no trouble yet to make her listen."

"By Jove! I should have thought marrying a fellow like me might have
been trouble enough to make a saint of her."

It was impossible to fix him to any line of thought, and Mary did not
attempt it. To move the child in him was more than all argument.

A pause followed. "I don't love God," he said.

"I dare say not," replied Mary. "How should you, when you don't know
him?"

"Then what's to be done? I can't very well show myself where I hate the
master of the house!"

"If you knew him, you would love him."

"You are judging by yourself. But there is as much difference between
you and me as between light and darkness."

"Not quite that," replied Mary, with one of those smiles that used to
make her father feel as if she were that moment come fresh from God to
him. "If you knew Jesus Christ, you could not help loving him, and to
love him is to love God."

"You wear me out! Will you never come to the point? _Know Jesus
Christ!_ How am I to go back two thousand years?"

"What he was then he is now," answered Mary. "And you may even know him
better than they did at the time who saw him; for it was not until they
understood him better, by his being taken from them, that they wrote
down his life."

"I suppose you mean I must read the New Testament?" said Mr. Redmain,
pettishly.

"Of course!" answered Mary, a little surprised; for she was unaware how
few have a notion what the New Testament is, or is meant for.

"Then why didn't you say so at first? There I have you! That's just
where I learn that I must be damned for ever!"

"I don't mean the Epistles. Those you can't understand--yet."

"I'm glad you don't mean _them._ I hate them."