s pastor that
he would like to have a little talk with him, and the pastor was there
to have the little talk.

During those seven months the lad had been attracting notice more and
more. The Bible students had cast up his reckoning unfavorably: he was
not of their kind--they moved through their studies as one flock of
sheep through a valley, drinking the same water, nipping the same
grass, and finding it what they wanted. His professors had singled him
out as a case needing peculiar guidance. Not in his decorum as a
student: he was the very soul of discipline. Not in slackness of study:
his mind consumed knowledge as a flame tinder. Not in any
irregularities of private life: his morals were as snow for whiteness.
Yet none other caused such concern.

All this the pastor knew; he had himself long had his eye on this lad.
During his sermons, among the rows of heads and brows and eyes upturned
to him, oftenest he felt himself looking at that big shock-head, at
those grave brows, into those eager, troubled eyes. His persistent
demonstrations that he and his brethren alone were right and all other
churches Scripturally wrong--they always seemed to take the light out
of that countenance. There was silence in the study now as the lad
modestly seated himself in a chair which the pastor had pointed out.

After fidgeting a few moments, he addressed the logician with a
stupefying premise:--

"My great-grandfather," he said, "once built a church simply to God,
not to any man's opinions of Him."

He broke off abruptly.

"So did Voltaire," remarked the pastor dryly, coming to the rescue.
"Voltaire built a church to God: 'Erexit deo Voltaire' Your
great-grandfather and Voltaire must have been kin to each other."

The lad had never heard of Voltaire. The information was rather
prepossessing.

"I think I should admire Voltaire," he observed reflectively.

"So did the Devil," remarked the pastor. Then he added pleasantly, for
he had a Scotch relish for a theological jest:--

"You may meet Voltaire some day."

"I should like to. Is he coming here?" asked the lad.

"Not immediately. He is in hell--or will be after the Resurrection of
the Dead."

The silence in the study grew intense.

"I understand you now," said the lad, speaking composedly all at once.
"You think that perhaps I will go to the Devil also."

"Oh, no!" exclaimed the pastor, hiding his smile and stroking his beard
with syllogistic self-respect. "My dear yo