in and forgiveness. Well, Tommy doesn't
understand what you mean by sin. He is confused to bits about it; but
the main thing that stands out is that a man may break all the Ten
Commandments theologically and yet be a rattling good pal, as brave as
a lion, as merry as a cricket, and the life and soul and _Christ_ of a
platoon. That's the fact, and it is the one thing that matters. But there
is another thing: if a man sins, how is he to get forgiveness? What sort
of a God is it Who will wipe the whole blessed thing out because in a
moment of enthusiasm the sinner says he is sorry? If that's all sin is,
it isn't worth worrying about, and if that is all God is, He's not got
the makings of a decent O.C."

"'"Good for you, skipper," said the other man.

"'Langton rounded on him. "It isn't good for me or for anyone," he said.
"And I'll tell you what, my boy: all that I've said doesn't justify a man
making a beast of himself, which is what the majority of us do. I can see
that a man may very wisely get drunk at times, but he's a ---- fool to
get himself sodden with drink." (And he went on to more, Hilda, that I
can't write to you.)

"'Well, I don't know what I said. I went back utterly miserable. Oh,
Hilda, I think I never ought to have come out here. Langton's right in a
way. We clergy have said the same thing so often that we forget how it
strikes a practical common-sense man. But there must be an answer
somewhere, if I only knew it. Meantime I'm like a doctor among the dying
who cannot diagnose the disease. I'm like a salesman with a shop full of
goods that nobody wants because they don't fulfil the advertisement. And
I never felt more utterly alone in my life.

"'These men talk a different language from mine; they belong to another
world. They are such jolly good fellows that they are prepared to accept
me as a comrade without question, but as for my message, I might as well
be trying to cure smallpox by mouthing sonorous Virgil--only it is worse
than that, for they no longer even believe that the diagnosis is what I
say. And what gets over me is that they are, on the whole, decent chaps.
There's Harold--he's probably immoral and he certainly drinks too much,
but he's as unselfish as possible, and I feel in my bones he'd do
anything to help a friend.

"'Of course, I hate their vices. The sights in the streets make me feel
positively sick. I wouldn't touch what they touch with a stick. When I
think of you, so honest and