"O, I knew you were honest. There isn't a dishonest fibre in your nature; but I wish you were all wrong. O, how delighted I should be if you were a heretic without knowing it, and we could find out a religion that wouldn't make one's blood run cold to think of it!" "But my religion does me good, Miss Marsden. It cheers, sustains, and strengthens me." "Now you see how inconsistent you are. You preach one thing, and feel and act another." "I begin to see how I was misled in my sermon, and why what I said was so repugnant to you; and yet my mind is confused. It still appears to me that I developed the thought of the text. Christ said, 'I am glad I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.' These words would seem to show that He regarded our transient pains as of very secondary importance compared with the accomplishment of His great purposes. Why did He not go to Bethany at once, if it were not so?" "Well, it's an awful text, or you give it an awful interpretation. Let me take the thought out of the realm of theology or religion, and bring it down to practical life. Suppose you go to New York to-morrow and remain a few days, and to-morrow night the house burns up, and I with it. Would your first thought be, 'I am glad I was not there to put out the fire or to rescue that naughty girl, Lottie Marsden, because her sudden death, for which she was all unprepared, will be a warning to many, and result in great good'? I may be wrong, Mr. Hemstead, but I think you would get pretty well scorched before you would permit even such a guy as I am to become a warning to other naughty girls." "I can't imagine myself leaving you in danger," said Hemstead, with a look that brought the blood into Lottie's face. "I thought you would feel so," she continued heartily. "You can preach awfully against sinners, but when you come to put your doctrines in practice, you say as you did to me, 'I wish I could bear all for you.' Heaven knows I'm selfish enough, but I can at least understand and appreciate generous and kindly sympathy, and could be won by it. But this cool and inflexible elaboration of character, where only the end is considered, and all our timid shrinking and human weakness are ignored,--this austere asceticism which despises the present world and life,--is to me unnatural and monstrous. I confess I never read the Bible very much, and have not listened when it was read. I have half forgotten the story of Lazarus. You left off where Lazarus was in his grave, and Christ was glad He was not there to prevent his death. But that was not all the story. I think, if I remember rightly, Christ raised him to life. Come, get a Bible, and let us read the whole story, and see if we cannot find something that will not make the word 'gospel' a mockery." "Won't you read it?" asked Hemstead, humbly, handing her the Bible. "Yes, if you wish me to, though it seems very funny that I should be reading the Bible to you."