ct, a constructive effect. He was astonished, in going over
such conversations afterwards, to discover that her questions and his
efforts to answer them in other than theological terms were both
illuminating and stimulating. Sayings in the Gospels leaped out in his
mind, fired with new meanings; so simple, once perceived, that he was
amazed not to have seen them before. And then he was conscious of a
palpitating joy which left in its wake a profound thankfulness. He made
no attempt as yet to correlate these increments, these glimpses of truth
into a system, but stored them preciously away.

He taxed his heart and intellect to answer her sensible and helpfully,
and thus found himself avoiding the logic, the Greek philosophy, the
outworn and meaningless phrases of speculation; found himself employing
(with extraordinary effect upon them both) the simple words from which
many of these theories had been derived. "He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father." What she saw in Horace Bentley, he explained, was God. God
wished us to know how to live, in order that we might find happiness, and
therefore Christ taught us that the way to find happiness was to teach
others how to live,--once we found out. Such was the meaning of Christ's
Incarnation, to teach us how to live in order that we might find God and
happiness. And Hodder translated for her the word Incarnation.

Now, he asked, how were we to recognize God, how might we know how he
wished us to live, unless we saw him in human beings, in the souls into
which he had entered? In Mr. Bentley's soul? Was this too deep?

She pondered, with flushed face.

"I never had it put to me like that," she said, presently. "I never
could have known what you meant if I hadn't seen Mr. Bentley."

Here was a return flash, for him. Thus, teaching he taught. From this
germ he was to evolve for himself the sublime truth that the world grown
better, not through automatic, soul-saving machinery, but by Personality.

On another occasion she inquired about "original sin;"--a phrase which
had stuck in her memory since the stormings of the Madison preacher.
Here was a demand to try his mettle.

"It means," he replied after a moment, "that we are all apt to follow the
selfish, animal instincts of our matures, to get all we can for ourselves
without thinking of others, to seek animal pleasures. And we always
suffer for it."

"Sure," she agreed. "That's what happened to me."

"And unless we see a