"Did you?" inquired the pastor. "You and your grandfather and Voltaire must ALL be kin to each other." His visage was not pleasant. "My trouble since coming to College," said the lad, pressing across the interruption, "has been to know which IS the right church--" "Are you a member of THIS church?" inquired the pastor sharply, calling a halt to this folly. "I am." "Then don't you know that it is the only right one?" "I do not. All the others declare it a wrong one. They stand ready to prove this by the Scriptures and do prove it to their satisfaction. They declare that if I become a preacher of what my church believes, I shall become a false teacher of men and be responsible to God for the souls I may lead astray. They honestly believe this." "Don't you know that when Satan has entered into a man, he can make him honestly believe anything?" "And you think it is Satan that keeps the other churches from seeing this is the only right one?" "I do! And beware, young man, that Satan does not get into YOU!" "He must be in me already." There was silence again, then the lad continued. "All this is becoming a great trouble to me. It interferes with my studies--takes my interest out of my future. I come to you then. You are my pastor. Where is the truth--the reason--the proof--the authority? Where is the guiding LAW in all this? I must find THE LAW and that quickly." There was no gainsaying his trouble: it expressed itself in his eyes, voice, entire demeanor. The pastor was not seeing any of these things. Here was a plain, ignorant country lad who had rejected his logic and who apparently had not tact enough at this moment to appreciate his own effrontery. In the whole sensitiveness of man there is no spot so touchy as the theological. "Have you a copy of the New Testament?" It was the tone in which the school-master of old times said, "Bring me that switch." "I have," "You can read it?" "I can." "You find in it the inspired account of the faith of the original church--the earliest history of Apostolic Christianity?" "I do." "Then, can you not compare the teachings of the Apostles, THEIR faith and THEIR practice, with the teachings of this church? ITS faith and ITS practice?" "I have tried to do that." "Then there is the truth. And the reason. And the proof. And the authority. And the LAW. We have no creed but the creed of the Apostolic churches; no practice but their practice; no teaching but their teaching in letter and in spirit." "That is what was told me before I came to college. It was told me that young men were to be prepared to preach the simple Gospel of Christ to all the world. There was to be no sectarian theology." "Well? Has any one taught you sectarian theology?" "Not consciously, not intentionally. Inevitably--perhaps. That is my trouble now--ONE of my troubles." "Well?" "May I ask you some questions?"