orward with equal eagerness to the day when
he should become a great and good man."]

Together they began again the study of the Scriptures, the little boy now
entering seriously upon that work of writing commentaries which had once
engaged Allan. In one of these school-boyish papers the old man came upon
a passage that impressed him as notable. It seemed to him that there was
not only that vein of poetic imagination--without which one cannot be a
great preacher--but a certain individual boldness of approach, monstrous
in its naive sentimentality, to be sure, but indicating a talent that
promised to mature splendidly.

"Now Jesus told his disciples," it ran, "that he must be crucified before
he could take his seat on the right hand of God and send to hell those who
had rejected him. He told them that one of them would have to betray him,
because it must be like the Father had said. It says at the last supper
Jesus said, 'The Son of Man goeth as it is written of him; but woe unto
that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed; it had been good for that man
if he had not been born.'

"Now it says that Satan entered into Judas, but it looks to me more like
the angel of the Lord might have entered into him, he being a good man to
start with, or our Lord would not have chosen him to be a disciple. Judas
knew for sure, after the Lord said this, that one of the disciples had got
to betray the Saviour and go to hell, where the worm dieth not and the
fire is not quenched. Well, Judas loved all the disciples very much, so he
thought he would be the one and save one of the others. So he went out and
agreed to betray him to the rulers for thirty pieces of silver. He knew if
he didn't do it, it might have to be Peter, James, or John, or some one
the Saviour loved very dearly, because it _had_ to be one of them. So
after it was done and he knew the others were saved from this foul deed,
he went back to the rulers and threw down their money, and went out and
hung himself. If he had been a bad man, it seems more like he would have
spent that money in wicked indulgences, food and drink and entertainments,
etc. Of course, Judas knew he would go to hell for it, so he was not as
lucky as Jesus, who knew he would go to heaven and sit at the right hand
of God when he died, which was a different matter from Judas's, who would
not have any reward at all but going to hell. It looks to me like poor
Judas had ought to be brought out of hell-fire, a