most coherent conception of God is likely a hazy vision
of a majestic figure seated on a cloud--a long-bearded patriarch,
wearing a golden crown--the composite of famous pictures that you
have seen. You have been taught to believe in a personal God,
and you have never taken the trouble to get beyond the notion that
personality--God's or anybody's--is mainly a matter of the possession
of such things as hands and feet. What can be the meaning to one like
you of the truth that we are made in the image of God? The Kingdom of
Heaven--that whole whirling activity of the commonwealth of God--the
citizenship towards which you might be pointing Baxter Court--you
have not even imagined it. I am not being sentimental. Don't
misunderstand. Don't fancy, for instance, that I am exhorting you to
go slumming. Deliberately or not, you took a wrong impression from my
first letter. You can't mistake this. Reach after a few of the
realities. Why not shut your questioning mind a while and open your
soul? _Live_ a little--begin to realize that there is a world outside
yourself. Try to get beyond the view-point of a child. And, if I have
not angered you beyond words, let me know how you get on.

The unconventionality of this correspondence, you see, is not all on
one side. If you found English to your taste in what I wrote before,
this time you have plain truths, perhaps less satisfactory. You are
not in a position to decide some matters. I do not ask you to let me
decide them for you. I have only tried to indicate some reasons why
you must wait before you act. And I think it has made you angry. One
has to risk that. Yesterday I could not have imagined sending a letter
like this to anybody. But it goes--and to you. I ask you to answer
it. I think you owe me that. It hasn't been exactly easy to write.

One more thing--don't trust letters to stand between you and the toy in
the dressing-table drawer. Any barrier there, to be in the least
effective, will have to be of your own building.

GEOFFREY McBIRNEY.

About a month after the above letter had been received, on September
10th, Geoffrey McBirney, dashing down the three flights of stairs in
the Parish House from his quarters on the top floor, peered into the
letter-box on the way to morning service. He peered eagerly. There
had been no answer to his letter; it was a month; he was surprisingly
uneasy. But there was nothing in the mail-box, so he swept along to