It is the most ardent desire of Sang to heal his wife, as he has healed many others. But the doubt in her mind baffles him, and for a long time he is unsuccessful. At last, however, he resolves to make a mighty effort--to besiege the Lord with his prayer, to wrestle with him, as Jacob did of old, and not to release him, until he has granted his petition. While he lies thus before the altar calling upon the Lord in sacred rapture, a tremendous avalanche sweeps down the mountainside, but divides, leaving the church and parsonage unharmed. The rumor of this new wonder spreads like fire in withered grass, and among thousands of others a number of clergymen, with their bishop, on their way to some convention, stop to convince themselves of the authenticity of the miracle, and to determine the attitude which they are to assume toward it. Then follows a long discussion between the bishop and the clergy regarding the value of miracles, some maintaining that the church has outgrown the need of them, others that they are indispensable--that Christianity cannot survive without them. For has not Christ promised that "even greater things than these shall ye do?" Is not this a case of the faith which verily can say to the mountain, "Rise up and cast thyself into the sea?" The other miracle, scarcely less marvellous than the deflection of the avalanche, is that Clara, who has slept for the first time in a month, now rises from her bed and goes forth to meet her husband, and falls upon his neck amid the ringing of the church-bells and the hallelujahs of the assembled multitudes. But when he tries to raise her she is dead, and he himself, overwhelmed by his emotion, falls dead at her side.