He was willing to repent of everything else, but not of his politics. And St. Paul himself could not have dragged him across the Democratic party line in that county, not even if he had showed him the open doors of Heaven. I do not know what is to become of such Christians. The country is full of them, and if they cause as many panics and slumps and anxieties in the next world as they do in this one we shall have a lot more trouble there than we have been led to believe from reading Revelations. CHAPTER XIII WILLIAM WRESTLING WITH TRAVELING ANGELS I have had little to say about the joy of William, although he was one of the most joyful men I have ever known. The reason is I never understood it. His joy was not natural like mine (in so far as I had any)--it was supernatural, and not at all dependent upon the actual visible circumstance about him. It used to frighten me sometimes to face the last month before quarterly conference with only two dollars, half a sack of flour and the hock end of a ham. But then it was that William rose to the heights of a strange and almost exasperating cheerfulness. He could see where he was going plainer. Our extremity gave him an opportunity to trust more in the miracles of providence, and that afforded him the greatest pleasure. He was never weary of putting his faith to the test. He was like a strong wrestling Jacob, going about looking for new angels to conquer. And I am bound to confess that his Lord never really failed him, although he sometimes came within five minutes of doing so. One Sabbath, I remember, he had an appointment at a church ten miles distant where he was to begin a protracted meeting. At the last moment his horse went lame. It so happened that some weeks previous William had overreached himself in a horse trade. He had swapped an irritable crop-eared mare for a very handsome animal who proved to have a gravel in one of his fore feet. This horse would lay his tail over the dashboard and travel like inspiration for days at a time up and down the long country roads; then, suddenly, if there was a hurried message to go somewhere to comfort a dying man or preach his funeral, the creature would begin to limp as if he never expected to use but three legs again. I believe William suspected the devil had something to do with this diabolical gravel, for he never gave way to impatience as a natural man would have done in such a predicament. Upon the occasion I have mentioned, he helped the old hypocrite back into the stable with a mildness that exasperated me as I watched with my hat on from the window, for it was already past the time when we should have started. "Silas is too lame to travel to-day," said he a moment later as he entered the kitchen. "But what will you do, William?" I exclaimed, provoked in spite of myself at his serenity. "It will be dreadful if you miss your appointment at the beginning of the meeting."