that men
are truly brothers, not one of whom can be long happy while any other
suffers.

Come, Grandad, let us give up this God of Moses. Doubtless he was good
enough for the early Jews, but man has always had to make God in his own
image, and you and I need a better one, for we both surpass this one in
all spiritual values--in love, in truth, in justice, in common decency--as
much as Jesus surpassed the unrepentant thief at his side. Remember that
an honest, fearless search for truth has led to all the progress we can
measure over the brutes. Why must it lose the soul?

BERNAL.

(From the Reverend Allan Delcher to Bernal Linford.)

My boy, I shall not believe you are sane until I have seen you face to
face. I cannot believe you have fallen a victim to Universalism, which is
like the vale of Siddim, full of slime-pits. I am an old man, and my mind
goes haltingly, yet that is what I seem to glean from your rambling
screed. Come when you are through, for I must see you once more.

"For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not
condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath
not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God."

Lastly--doubt in infinite things is often wise, but doubt of God must be
blasphemy, else he would not be God, the all-perfect.

I pray it may be your mind is still sick--and recall to you these words of
one I will not now name to you: "Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do."

ALLAN DELCHER.

CHAPTER V

"IS THE HAND OF THE LORD WAXED SHORT?"

A dismayed old man, eagerly trying to feel incredulous, awaited the
home-coming of his grandsons at the beginning of that vacation.

Was the hand of the Lord waxed short, that so utter a blasphemer--unless,
indeed, he were possessed of a devil--could walk in the eye of Jehovah,
and no breach be made upon him? Even was the world itself so lax in these
days that one speaking thus could go free? If so, then how could God
longer refrain from drowning the world again? The human baseness of the
blaspheming one and the divine toleration that permitted it were alike
incredible.

A score of times the old man nerved himself to laugh away his fears. It
could not be. The young mind was still disordered.

On the night of the home-coming he greeted the youth quite as if all were
serene within him, determine