a choking in his
breast. His father had simply said, "My boy, I want you to be a man.
Your mother and I have prayed for you all these years. We believe you
will not disappoint us. Don't forget God, Louis. You need to pray to
overcome this great temptation of impure thinking. The gates of Hell are
close by that sort of life. Not even your father and mother can spare
you from ruin that way. You have got to fight it out yourself. God
helping you."

Paul looked up at the clock and saw it was after midnight, but on a
venture he called up the committee room at the State House. A night
janitor answered and informed him that the committee had been gone for
over an hour.

He went upstairs and found Esther in her sewing room, her face pale and
troubled, traces of tears on her cheeks and such a look of real fear on
her face that Paul exclaimed, "Esther! What is it?"

She turned to her table and picked up a package of postcards and with a
shudder of loathing held them out to Paul.

He took them and saw at a second's glance that they were the vulgar,
coarse, suggestive and even indecent photographic postcards which this
great civilised, supposedly Christian, government even yet allows to
pass through the post office and be displayed and sold at every news
stand and book store in the country.

"They dropped out of Louis's coat when I began to mend it this evening.
And there was worse. He or some other boy had written this vile thing."
Esther handed it to Paul what she had found. Paul read it and his face
grew white and stern. Esther sat down and put her head on her arms and
almost shrieked.

"Oh, I can't bear it! Louis! Louis! How could you! Oh, how can his soul
ever be clean again! Oh, boy, your mother's heart is broken! After all
my prayers for you! After all the days and nights of consecration! Oh,
my son, my son! Would God I had died before I knew or saw this! Oh, my
Master, the cup is too bitter! I can't drink it!"

Never in all his knowledge of Esther had Paul ever seen her like this.
His own heart almost stopped at the sight. For years she had been so
uniformly calm and strong even when her children had disappointed her.
She had with high-spirited motherhood faced their sins and wrong-doing
with a peaceful faith that they would do right in the end. But this
discovery seemed to smite her soul down into a hopeless darkness, where
there was no redemption. And as Paul looked at her there was in his soul
more anguish for