“You cannot evade your responsibility by harping on words or phrases, Priscilla. In any question of marriage one cannot express too rigid an adherence to what is legal and what is illegal.” “In that case, then, surely we shall be able to obtain a divorce in a court of law----” “There is no such thing as divorce.” Mr. Possnett had unwittingly walked into the trap laid for his feet by a young woman who had for years been acquainted with his individual views respecting the dissolution by a court of law of a marriage celebrated in a church of God. “There is no such thing as divorce,” he said. “I refuse to recognize the validity of a so-called decree of divorce. I would think it my duty to refuse to perform the service of marriage between two persons either of whom had been divorced. Having once said the words, ‘Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder!’” “But surely divorce is perfectly legal, Mr. Possnett?” said Priscilla. “I care nothing for that.” “But you said just now that in all questions of marriage one must be bound down by what is legal and what is illegal; and now you tell me that you refuse to be bound down to a legal decree of divorce. Oh, Mr. Possnett, you cannot blow both hot and cold in the same breath.” “In all matters but this--but our Church permits a priest to hold his own opinion, if it be formed on conscientious grounds. It is not like the Church of Rome; it recognizes the imperative nature of the call of religious scruples on the part of an individual priest.” “And the Church does well. Let the priest follow the example of his Church, and recognize the spiritual exigencies of a poor woman who loved a man and married him in all honesty of purpose and in all good faith.” “Talk not to me of such things; the fact remains--the terrible truth--that man is not your husband. Priscilla, this is, I know, a great trial; but you know whence it comes. I have taught you ill all these years if you fail to acknowledge the Hand--the Hand--you know that it comes from God.” “That is the reflection which prevents me from being overwhelmed, Mr. Possnett. I try to feel that it all comes from God--that it is meant to try our faith, and I cannot doubt that its effect will be to draw us closer together, my dear husband and myself--nay, I have felt that it has done so already. Our faith in each other has been strengthened--it has indeed.” “That is not the object of the trial. Trial is sent to purify the soul, as gold is tried by fire; the furnace of affliction is meant to cleanse, not to strengthen one’s persistence in a course of sin.” “I have never doubted it, Mr. Possnett, nor can I doubt that this burden, though it is hard to bear, will but strengthen our characters--strengthen all those qualities which go to build up into one life the life of a man and a woman who love each other, and whose faith in each other has been proved under the stress of adversity.”