II. CONVERSION It is an old-fashioned Methodist conversion of which he tells, which links itself up with the New Testament gospel of the regeneration of a human soul in such a fascinating way that it gives those of us who preach this gospel an impelling, modern, dramatic putting of the old, old story, that will thrill our congregations and grip the hearts of men who know not the Christ. 1. _Conviction of Sin_ Saul Kane was an amateur prizefighter. He and his friend Bill have a fight in the opening lines of the tale, and Saul wins. This victory is followed by the usual debauch, which lasts until all the drunken crowd are asleep on the floor of the "Lion." No Russian novelist, nor a Dostoievesky, nor another, ever dared such realism as Masefield has given us in his picture of this night's sin. He makes sin all that it is--black and hideous: "From three long hours of gin and smokes, And two girls' breath and fifteen blokes, A warmish night and windows shut The room stank like a fox's gut. The heat, and smell, and drinking deep Began to stun the gang to sleep." The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street. But this was too much for Saul Kane. He had still enough decency left to be ashamed. He wanted air. He went to a window and threw it open: "I opened window wide and leaned Out of that pigsty of the fiend, And felt a cool wind go like grace About the sleeping market-place. The clock struck three, and sweetly, slowly, The bells chimed, Holy, Holy, Holy; And in a second's pause there fell The cold note of the chapel bell, And then a cock crew flapping wings, And summat made me think of things!" The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street. There it is: sin, and conviction of sin. Perhaps he thought of another man who had virtually betrayed the Christ, and the cock crew and made that other "think o' things." Then came the reaction from that conviction; the battle against that same conviction that he must give up sin and surrender to the Christ; and a terrific battle it is, and a terrific description of that battle Masefield gives us, lightninglike in its vividness until there comes the little woman of God, Miss Bourne (a deaconess, if you please), who has always known the better man in Saul, who has followed him with her Christly love like "The Hound of Heaven." And how tenderly, yet how insistently, how pleadingly she speaks: "'Saul Kane,' she said, 'when next you drink, Do me the gentleness to think That every drop of drink accursed Makes Christ within you die of thirst; That every dirty word you say Is one more flint upon His way, Another thorn about His head, Another mock by where He tread; Another nail another cross; All that you are is that Christ's loss.'" The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow in the Bye Street.