.

VIII. A MAN'S VOICE

Fergimme, O Gawd, if it makes Thou mad fer to be prayed to by a sneakin'
boiglar, but help me t'roo dis one job and I'll go straight from now on,
so help me. Don't let dis guy find me crackin' his safe, so's I won't
have to kill 'im. Help me make a clean getaway and I'll toin over a noo
leaf, I will. I'll send money to me mudder, and I'll go to choich
reg'lar and I'll never do nuttin' crooked again. On'y dis one time, O
Gawd.

* * * * *

God closed His eyes and smiled the sorrowful smile of the All-knowing,
the All-pitying, the Unknown, the Unpitied, and He said to Him who sat
at His side:

"They call these Prayers! They will wonder why I have not finished the
tasks they set Me nor accepted the bribes they offered. And to-morrow
they will rebuke Me as a faithless, indolent servant who has
disobeyed!"

PAIN

I

"How much more bitter, dearly beloved, are the anguishes of the soul
than any mere bodily distress! When the heart under conviction of sin
for the violation of one of God's laws writhes and cries aloud in
repentance and remorse, then, ah, then, is true suffering. What are the
fleeting torments of this tenement of clay, mere bone and flesh, to the
soul's despair? Nothing! Noth--"

The clergyman's emphatic fist did not thump the Scriptures the second
time. He checked it in air; for a woman stood up straight and stared at
him straight. Her thin mouth seemed to twist with a sneer. He thought he
read on her lips words not quite uttered. He read:

"You fool! You fool!"

Then Miss Straley sidled from the family pew to the aisle and marched up
it and out of the church.

Doctor Crosson was shocked doubly. The woman's action was an outrage
upon the holy composure of the Sabbath, and it would remind everybody
that he was an old lover of Irene Straley's.

The neatly arranged congregational skulls were disordered now, some
still tilted forward in sleep, some tilted back to see what the pastor
would do, some craned round to observe the departer, some turned inward
in whispering couples.

Such a thing had never happened before in all the parsoning of Doctor
Crosson--the D.D. had been conferred on him by the small theological
institute where he had imbibed enough dogmas in two years to last him a
lifetime.

Some of his dogmas were so out of fashion that he felt them a trifle
shabby even for village wear. He had laid aside the old red hell-fire