What was the cause of this young man's failure?" reiterated the
preacher. The preacher had a wholesome belief in the value of
reiteration. He had a habit of rubbing in his points. "He blamed the
boss. Listen to his impudence! 'I knew thee to be a hard man.' He blamed
his own temperament and disposition. 'I was afraid.' But the boss brings
him up sharp and short. 'Quit lying!' he said. 'I'll tell you what's
wrong with you. You've got a mean heart, you ain't honest, and you're
too lazy to live. Here, take that money from him and give it to the man
that can do most with it, and take this useless loafer out of my sight.'
And served him right, too, say I, impudent, lazy liar."

Cameron found his mind rising in wrathful defense of the unhappy
wretched failure in the story. But the preacher was utterly relentless
and proceeded to enlarge upon the character of the unhappy wretch.

"Impudent! The way to tell an impudent man is to let him talk. Now
listen to this man cheek the boss! 'I knew you,' he said. 'You skin
everybody in sight.' I have always noticed," remarked the preacher, with
a twinkle in his eye, "that the hired man who can't keep up his end is
the kind that cheeks the boss. And so it is with life. Why, some men
would cheek Almighty God. They turn right round and face the other way
when God is explaining things to them, when He is persuading them, when
He is trying to help them. Then they glance back over their shoulders
and say, 'Aw, gwan! I know better than you.' Think of the impudence of
them! That's what many a man does with God. With GOD, mind you! GOD!
Your Father in heaven, your Brother, your Saviour, God as you know him
in the Man of Galilee, the Man you always see with the sick and the
outcast and the broken-hearted. It is this God that owns you and all
you've got--be honest and say so. You must begin by getting right with
God."

"God!" Once more Cameron went wandering back into the far away days
of childhood. God was very near then, and very friendly. How well he
remembered when his mother had tucked him in at night and had kissed him
and had put out the light. He never felt alone and afraid, for she left
him, so she said, with God. It was God who took his mother's place, near
to his bedside. In those days God seemed very near and very kind. He
remembered his mother's look one day when he declared to her that he
could hear God breathing just beside him in the dark. How remote
God seemed to-day and how shad