It had not taken Harrington long to find out which was the most influential and intellectual church in the community and to connect himself with it. Thereafter, he set about bringing Joyce to go with him sometimes. He felt if she could but listen to the wise and modern thoughts of this most learned divine, who preached at his chosen church, it would be easier to win her from some of her narrow views. But when he asked her to go to church with him, one evening, she told him she could not leave her own, that she had asked her Sunday School class to go with her that night. When he said, then they would go the next Sunday night, she looked at him with her clear eyes and said: “I’m sorry to have to say no again, but I cannot go to that church at all. That minister dishonors my Lord, and I do not feel I can ever listen to him again.” He told her it sounded pharisaical for a young girl like herself to set up to criticise a man of the minister’s years and standing. Didn’t she know that the great denomination for which he stood was back of him, and that they knew better than she did, a young girl with little experience? Besides, what about that Bible verse that said you mustn’t speak evil of dignitaries? She had been taught by dear old-fashioned people, and it was beautiful to look back on such an upbringing, but, of course, it wasn’t progress to stay just where her forefathers had stood. She ought to go on to higher realms of thought. It wasn’t Christian to stand still. Things were not as they used to be. Science and art and everything else had progressed and grown, why should not religion? Men had learned more of God, and grown wiser. They had learned that He was not the same God their fathers had supposed. Her answer was to look at him steadily with rising color, and repeat: “‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.’ And I’m not speaking evil of dignitaries. I’m telling you he dishonored my Lord. The Bible says, ‘From such turn away.’” “Oh, now, don’t you think you are pressing a point too far?” he said. “Of course Christ is the same, it’s our views of Him that have changed. We have grown, and are able to see Him in a bigger, broader sense, as a grand example for the whole world; not just a little personal God who attends to each detail of our life.” “I’m afraid I wouldn’t care much about Him if He wasn’t personal, and didn’t care for the details of my life,” she said. “I take great pleasure in that verse: ‘He knoweth the way that I take,’ and ‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered,’ and ‘Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.’ And my God isn’t a little one, either, because He attends to all the details. He wouldn’t be a God at all if He didn’t.” “I certainly wish I had your memory,” said the young man with a look of admiration. “You have a fine mind. You would have made a good lawyer. But I hate to see you so narrow. It isn’t like you in other things to be narrow.”