.

CHAPTER XXXVI

"Funny thing the way people talk about salvation," Uncle Sim observed to
Lois, on an evening in the autumn when his legs were extended before her
fire. "To hear 'em you'd think there was no salvation except for sin,
and none even for that but what is post-mortem. Post-mortem salvation
may be all very well, but if there's anything blessed I want it right
now."

"Of course, with a good man like you--"

"Good? Good's got nothing to do with it--or not much. The man who is
called the Saviour, above every one else, didn't wait for people to be
good before He saved them. He saved them first and said 'Sin no more' to
them afterward."

"Oh, but with His extraordinary means--"

"He had no means that you haven't got yourself--in essence. Difference
between you and Him is not in kind, but in degree. If He could save all
men, you and I can at least save one or two or a dozen--or do something
toward it."

"You mean save them _here_."

"Saving 'em here is saving 'em anywhere, isn't it?"

"And you don't mean saving them only in the theological sense of saving
their souls--"

"Mean saving 'em anyhow. Save a man from hanging, or a child from
tumbling in the mud, or an old woman from having her best bonnet spoiled
by rain--it's all salvation--it all meets the human need--it's all part
of the same principle--it all works to the same end."

"And what is the end?"

"The same as the middle, and the same as the beginning, and the same as
it is all through." He rose and stretched himself. "I leave you to find
your own name for it. I call it by a word of four letters," he laughed,
"and it begins with an _l_. You can't have too much of it, if you know
what it is--which is just what many people don't know."

She stood before him, coloring, smiling a little, but with eyes lowered.
"I wonder if _I_ know what it is, Uncle Sim?"

"If you don't," he smiled down at her, "you're taking a good way to
learn."

This view of the principle she was using as a guide was not new to her;
it was only illuminating and corroborative. It was spectrum analysis
where she had seen a star. It was the kingdom of heaven reduced from a
noble phrase to such terms of simple, kindly living as she knew herself
able to fulfil. It was the ideal become practical, and the present
rendered one with the eternal, with the fruits of righteousness sown in
peace of them that make peace beyond anything she had ever expected. On
the winter aft