“And, of course,” said his wife, “a good sermon. Did you ‘make ’em sit up,’ as you told me you would?” “Well, certainly I made one young fellow sit up. And he nearly beat me up for my pains.” “What do you mean?” asked his wife. “Just what I tell you. I thought I was in for a genuine row.” “Go on! Go on! Why do you stop?” “Well, it is such an astonishing experience that I am almost paralysed by it.” “Go on, you silly boy,” cried his wife impatiently. “You are so provoking.” “Well, let me begin at the beginning. You remember my sermon was a discussion of the origin of the Bible, and I went in for a somewhat mild discussion of the critical difficulties and that sort of thing attached to the text, as I told you last night.” “Yes, I know you did. And you remember I warned you that you would get into trouble.” “Well, you were right, as you are always. But let me go on. Don’t interrupt me. At the close of the service, after all the people were gone, I found sitting in the back a young man dressed like a cowboy, apparently not waiting for me but held there, entranced by the music. DeLaunay was playing some weird and wild thing. I came down with my most gracious smile and hand outstretched to welcome him to the church, in the orthodox style, when he rose from his place, a tall, lean, hard looking chap, and yet the kind of fellow that you would call ‘a dear’—good blue eyes, thin face, very attractive, in short, ‘a lovely boy,’ as you would say.” “Well, what was the matter with him?” inquired his wife impatiently. “What was the matter? My heterodoxy.” “Well then I agree with him. I am sure he must be quite a nice boy. And I wish you would just leave people alone with their Bibles. It was good enough for their fathers, why not good enough for them?” “Well, my dear, I have two reasons, as you very well know. The first is that if I leave the people alone my conscience won’t leave me alone. And the second is that if I leave the people alone they will soon be leaving the church alone.” “Well, go on with your story. Tell me about the boy.” “As I said, I began welcoming him most cordially to the service, and that sort of thing, and he opened out on me. First shot, ‘You don’t believe the Bible!’ he said. ‘What?’ I said. ‘You don’t believe the Bible. You don’t believe it is God’s inspired word. Do you?’ “Well, I was flabbergasted. I said, ‘Yes, of course I do.’ ‘But you said a lot of it wasn’t true. How do you know the true parts from the untrue?’ At this he pulls out his Bible—it looked well worn from use—opens it at the very first chapter and said, with a long finger pointing to the first verse—by the way, he has beautiful hands—‘You don’t believe that first verse: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” You don’t believe about Adam and Eve. You don’t believe about Noah and Joseph and Moses and Pharaoh’s daughter and Goliath.’