wing the tale of
God's rejection of sinful nations.

Toyner answered now. His eye was clearer, his hand steadier. "I have
read there's many that say that God could not have told His people to
slay whole nations, men, women, and children. I think it's the
shallowest thing that was ever said. I don't know about His _telling
people_ to do it--that may be a poem; but that He gave it to them to do,
that He gives it to winds and floods and fires and plagues to do, time
and time and again, is as certain as that if there's a God He must have
things His way or He isn't God. But I don't believe that in this world,
or in the next, He ever left man, woman, or child, but lived with each
one all through the sin and the destruction. And, sir, I take it that
men couldn't see that until at last there came One who looked into God's
heart and saw the truth, and He wanted to tell it, but there were no
words, so though He had power in Him to be King over the whole earth, He
chose instead to be the companion of sinners, and to go down into all
the depths of pain and shame and death and hell. And He said His Father
had been doing it always, and He did it to show forth the Father. That
is what it means. I am sure that is what it means."

The preacher was surprised to see the transformation that was going on
in the man before him. That wonderful law which gives to some centre of
energy in the brain the control of bodily strength, if but the right
relationship between mind and body can be established, was again
working, although in a lesser degree than formerly, to restore this man
before his eyes. Bart, who had appeared shrunken, trembling, and
watery-eyed, was pulling himself together with some strength that he had
got from somewhere, and was standing up again ready to play a man's
part. The preacher did not understand why. There seemed to him to have
been nothing but failure in the interview. He made one more effort; he
put the last stone in his sling. Toyner had just spoken of the
sacrifice of Calvary, and to the preacher it seemed that he set it at
naught, because he was claiming salvation for those who mocked as well
as for those who believe.

"Think of it," he said; "you make wrong but an inferior kind of right.
You take away the reason for the one great Sacrifice, and in this you
are slighting Him who suffered for you."

Then he made, with all the force and eloquence he could, the personal
appeal of the Christ whom he felt to be slig