ike every other field has some
tares in it, but it is full of corn ripening fast which will be ready
for the reaping when it shall please the Lord to descend with his own
son, Jesus of Nazareth, from the skies. As soon as the words Jesus of
Nazareth had left his lips Paul regretted them, for he did not doubt
that he was speaking to a madman whose name, no doubt, was Jesus, and
who had come from Nazareth, and having got some inkling of the true
story of the resurrection had little by little conceived himself to be
he who had died that all might be saved; and upon a sudden resolve not
to utter another word that might offend the madman's beliefs, he began
to tell that he had brought hope to the beggar, the outcast, to the
slave; though this world was but a den of misery to them, another world
was coming to which they might look forward in full surety; and many, he
said, that led vile lives are now God-fearing men and women who, when
the daily work is done, go forth in the evening to beseech the multitude
to give some time to God.

In every field there are tares, but there are fewer in my field than in
any other, and that I hold to be the truth; and seeing that Jesus was
listening to his story he began to relate his theology, perplexing Jesus
with his doctrines, but interesting him with the glad tidings that the
burden of the law had been lifted from all. If he had stopped there all
would have been well, so it seemed to Jesus, whose present mind was not
able to grasp why a miracle should be necessary to prove to men that the
love of God was in the heart rather than in observances, and the miracle
that Paul continued to relate with so much unction seemed to him so
crude; yet he once believed that God was pleased to send his only
begotten son to redeem the world by his death on a cross. A strange
conception truly. And while he was thinking these things Paul fell to
telling his dogma concerning predestination, and he was anxious that
Jesus should digest his reply to Mathias, who had said that
predestination conflicted with the doctrine of salvation for all. But
Jesus, who was of Mathias' opinion, refrained from expressing himself
definitely on the point, preferring to forget Paul, so that he might
better consider if he would be able to make plain to Paul that miracles
bring no real knowledge of God to man, and that our conscience is the
source of our knowledge of God and that perhaps a providence nourishes
beyond the world.