ut a
well dressed man came down the aisle and read a long financial
statement. Dave gathered from it that the Lord was pretty hard pressed
for ready cash. "No wonder," thought he, "if they all give nickels and
nothin's. Pretty well dressed bunch, too."

Finally the preacher took the meeting in hand again, and announced his
text, but Dave soon forgot it in trying to follow the sermon. It was
an orthodox exposition of the doctrine of the atonement. Dave would
not have known it by that name, and there were many expressions which
he could not understand, but out of a maze of phrases he found himself
being slowly shocked into an attitude of uncompromising hostility.
There was no doubt about it; the preacher was declaring that an
innocent One had been murdered that the guilty might go free. This was
bad enough, but when the speaker went on to say that this was God's
plan; that there had to be a sacrifice, and that no other sacrifice was
sufficient to appease the wrath of Jehovah directed toward those whom
He had created, Dave found himself boiling with indignation. If this
was Christianity he would have none of it. His instruction in religion
had been of the most meagre nature, but he had imbibed some conception
of a Father who was love, and this doctrine of the sacrifice of the
innocent crashed through all his slender framework of belief. Had he
been told of a love which remained steadfast to its ideals even at the
cost of Calvary his manliness would have responded as to the touch of a
kindred spirit, but the attempt to fit that willing sacrifice into a
dogmatic creed left him adrift and rudderless. Suddenly from somewhere
in his memory came the words, "Then what becomes of the justice of
God?" It was Reenie Hardy who had asked that question. And he
recalled his answer, "I don't know nothin' about the justice of God.
All I know is the crittur 'at can't run gets caught." Was he then in
sympathy with this doctrine of cruelty, without knowing it? No. No!
Reenie Hardy had believed in justice, and he would believe in the same.
He rose from his seat and walked down the aisle and out of the
building, oblivious to the eyes that followed him.

His feet led him to the river, running brown with the mud of spring.
He sat on the gravel, in the warm sunshine, and tossed pebbles into the
swift-flowing water. . . He had determined on a new road, but how was
he to find the road? Environment had never been kind to him, and h