No one ever knew Joshua tell the shadow of a lie, or go back from his word, or play at pretence.  And he had such an odd way of coming right home to us.  He seemed to have felt all that we felt, and to have thought all our thoughts.

The youths that Joshua got together as his friends were as well-conditioned a set of lads as you would wish to see—­sober, industrious, chaste.  Their aim was to be thorough and like Christ.  Joshua’s great hope was to bring back the world to the simplicity and broad humanity of Christ’s acted life, and he could not understand how it had been let drop.

He was but a young man at this time, remember—­enthusiastic, with little or no scientific knowledge, and putting the direct interposition of God above the natural law.  Wherefore, he accepted the text about faith removing mountains as literally true.  And one evening he went down into the Rocky Valley, earnest to try conclusions with God’s promise, and sure of proving it true.

He prayed to God to grant us this manifestation—­to redeem His promise.  Not a shadow of doubt chilled or slacked him.  As he stood there in the softening twilight, with his arms raised above his head and his face turned up to the sky, his countenance glowed as Moses’ of old.  He seemed inspired, transported beyond himself, beyond humanity.

He commanded the stone to move in God’s name, and because Christ had promised.  But the rock stood still, and a stonechat went and perched on it.

Another time he took up a viper in his hand, quoting the passage, “They shall take up serpents.”  But the beast stung him, and he was ill for days after.

“Take my advice,” said the doctor.  “Put all these thoughts out of your head.  Get some work to do in a new part of the country, fall in love with some nice girl, and marry as soon as you can make a home for her.  That’s the only life for you, depend upon it.”

“God has given me other thoughts,” said Joshua, “and I must obey them.”

The doctor said afterwards that he was quite touched at the lad’s sweetness and wrong-headedness combined.

The failure of these trials of faith perplexed us all, and profoundly afflicted Joshua.  “Friends,” he said at last, “it seems to me—­indeed, I think we must all see it now—­that His Word is not to be accepted literally.  The laws of nature are supreme, and even faith cannot change them.  Can it be,” he then said solemnly, “that much of the Word is a parable—­that Christ was truly, as He says of Himself, the corner-stone, but not the whole building—­and that we have to carry on the work in His spirit, but in our own way, and not merely to try and repeat His acts?”

It was after this that we noticed a certain restlessness in Joshua.  But in time he had an offer to go up to London to follow his trade at a large house in the City, and got me a job as well, that I might be alongside of him.  For we were like brothers.  A few days before he went, Joshua happened to be coming out of his father’s workshop just as Mr. Grand was passing, driving the neat pair-horse phaeton he had lately bought.