ber, an' every idle tongue is a thief an' a liar. We all steal.
But there's somethin' of God an' divinity in all of us, an' in spite
of our shortcomin' it'll bring us back at last to our Father's home
if we'll give it a chance. God's Book can't lie, an' it says: '_Tho'
your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow!_' ... an' then
agin, _shall have life everlasting!_"

"Life everlastin'," repeated the outlaw. "Do you believe that? Oh, if
it was only so! To live always up there an' with little Jack. How do
you know it ain't lyin'?--It's too gran' to be so. How do you know it
ain't lyin', I say? Hillard Watts, are you handin' it out to me
straight about this here Jesus Christ?" he cried bitterly.

"Well, it's this way, Jack," said the old man, "jes' this away an'
plain as the nose on yo' face: Now here's me, ain' it? Well, you know
I won't lie to you. You believe me, don't you?"

The outlaw nodded.

"Why?" asked the Bishop.

"Because you ain't never lied to me," said the other. "You've allers
told me the truth about the things I know to be so."

"But now, suppose," said the old man, "I'd tell you about somethin'
you had never seed--that, for instance, sence you've been an outcast
from society an' a livin' in this cave, I've seed men talk to each
other a hundred miles apart, with nothin' but a wire betwix' 'em."

"That's mighty hard to believe," said the outlaw grimly.

"But I've seed it done," said the Bishop.

"Do you mean it?" asked the other.

"As I live, I have," said the Bishop.

"Then it's so," said Jack.

"Now that's faith, Jack--an' common sense, too. We know what'll be
the earthly end of the liar, an' the thief, an' the murderer, an' him
that's impure--because we see 'em come to thar end all the time. It
don't lie when it tells you the good are happy, an' the hones' are
elevated an' the mem'ry of the just shall not perish, because them
things we see come so. Now, if after tellin' you all that, that's
true, it axes you to believe when it says there is another life--a
spiritual life, which we can't conceive of, an' there we shall live
forever, can't you believe that, too, sence it ain't never lied about
what you can see, by your own senses? Why ever' star that shines, an'
ever' beam of sunlight fallin' on the earth, an' ever' beat of yo'
own heart by some force that we know not of, all of them is mo'
wonderful than the telegraph, an' the livin' agin of the spirit ain't
any mo' wonderful than the