“I hope you are, Mr. Ingram, though, to be honest with you, some things make me doubt it Perhaps you would say I am not a Christian.” “It is enough that God knows whether you are a Christian or not. Why should I say you are or you are not?” “But I want to know what you meant when you said you were a Christian. How should that make you indifferent to the death of your friends? Death is a dreadful thing, look at it how you like.” “The Lord says, 'He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.' If my friends are not dead, but living and waiting for me, why should I wait for them in a fierce, stormy night, or a black frost, instead of the calm of such a sleeping day as this--a day with the son hid, Shakespeare calls it.” “How you do mix up things! Shakespeare and Jesus Christ!” “God mixed them first, and will mix them a good deal more yet,” said Andrew. But for the smile which would hover like a heavenly Psyche about his mouth, his way of answering would sometimes have seemed curt to those who did not understand him. Instead of holding aloof in his superiority, however, as some thought he did when he would not answer, or answered abruptly, Andrew's soul would be hovering, watching and hoping for a chance of lighting, and giving of the best he had. He was like a great bird changing parts with a child--the child afraid of the bird, and the bird enticing the child to be friends. He had learned that if he poured out his treasure recklessly it might be received with dishonor, and but choke the way of the chariot of approaching truth. “Perhaps you will say next there is no such thing as suffering,” resumed Alexa. “No; the Lord said that in the world His friends should have tribulation.” “What tribulation have you, who are so specially His friend?” “Not much yet It is a little, however, sometimes, to know such strong, and beautiful, and happy-making things, and all the time my people, my beloved humans, born of my Father in heaven, with the same heart for joy and sorrow, will not listen and be comforted, I think that was what made our Lord sorriest of all.” “Mr. Ingram, I have no patience with you. How dare you liken your trouble to that of our Lord--making yourself equal with Him!” “Is it making myself equal with Him to say that I understand a little how He felt toward His fellow-men? I am always trying to understand Him; would it be a wonder if I did sometimes a little? How is a man to do as He did, without understanding Him?” “Are you going to work miracles next?” “Jesus was always doing what God wanted Him to do. That was what He came for, not to work miracles. He could have worked a great many more if He had pleased, but He did no more than God wanted of Him. Am I not to try to do the will of God, because He who died that I might, always succeeded however hard it was, and I am always failing and having to try again?” “And you think you will come to it in this life?”