"Aye, aye, mister, but I bain't be no scholard. I've not bin so bad as some blokes I knows on. A glass o' beer now and agin, Gawd Almighty 'E carn't send a bloke to 'ell for that. Can 'E now, mister? I want ter be saved, that's wot _hi_ want. Ter be saved. An' Gawd's truth, I don't know wot'll do fur a doss ternight, Gawd's struth, mister...." "Let us pray," said the clergyman suddenly. The tears stood in Paul's eyes, as, his face hidden in his hands against the rough wooden bars of his chair, he heard his father wrestle with his God for the man's soul. He never heard his father pray thus without seeing a mental picture from an old Bible of his childhood, wherein Jacob, an ill-drawn figure in a white robe girt up about his waist, twisted back with his shrunken sinew from an angel with an odd distorted face like the one that a crack in the ceiling made with the wall in the candle-light above his bed. Even now, he saw it again. "Lord, we will not let Thee go except Thou bless us. Have mercy upon this poor storm-tossed soul. Give him joy and peace in believing. Let there be joy in the presence of the angels of God this night over one sinner returning." Out in the sharp air, he took his father's arm. "Daddy, he was half-drunk. Do you think he understood?" "Nothing is impossible with God, Paul, always remember that. If the Master could save the dying thief, He can save him." A dozen silent paces, and then: "But, father, suppose he were run over and killed on his way to the lodging house, this night, as he is, do you think he would go straight to heaven?" "Yes, Paul, I do--by the infinite grace of God. Drunk as he was, I believe he knew what he said when he repeated: 'Just as I am--I come,' after me." "But--but----" Paul found it hard to put his new thought into words. "Well, Paul, laddie, out with it." "Well, dad, I don't see how that could have made him fit for heaven." His father's hand tightened on his arm. "Nor I, Paul, nor any man. But do you suppose that God will go back on His pledged and written Word?" And then, just then, a memory had shot through Paul's mind. "Which of the ten score different versions?" Manning had queried again, coolly. CHAPTER IV FATHER VASSALL God, if there be any God, speaks daily in a new language, by the tongues of men; the thoughts and habits of each fresh generation and each new-coined spirit throw another light upon the universe, and contain another commentary on the printed Bibles; every scruple, every true dissent, every glimpse of something new, is a letter of God's alphabet; and though there is a grave responsibility for all who speak, is there none for those who unrighteously keep silence and conform? Is not that also to conceal and cloak God's counsel?--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: _Lay Morals_. (1)