“You would like to be better?”

“I would.”

“Then you are of the same mind with God.”

“Yes, but I’m not a fool.  It won’t do to say I should like to be.  I must be it, and that’s not so easy.  It’s damned hard to be good.  I would have a fight for it, but there’s no time.  How is a poor devil to get out of such an infernal scrape?”

“Keep the commandments.”

“That’s it, of course; but there’s no time, I tell you—­no time; at least, so those cursed doctors will keep telling me.”

“If there were but time to draw another breath, there would be time to begin.”

“How am I to begin?  Which am I to begin with?”

“There is one commandment which includes all the rest.”

“Which is that?”

“To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“That’s cant.”

“After thirty years’ trial of it, it is to me the essence of wisdom.  It has given me a peace which makes life or death all but indifferent to me, though I would choose the latter.”

“What am I to believe about Him, then?”

“You are to believe in Him, not about Him.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He is our Lord and Master, Elder Brother, King, Saviour, the divine Man, the human God:  to believe in Him is to give ourselves up to Him in obedience—­to search out his will and do it.”

“But there’s no time, I tell you again,” the marquis almost shrieked.

“And I tell you there is all eternity to do it in.  Take Him for your master, and He will demand nothing of you which you are not able to perform.  This is the open door to bliss.  With your last breath you can cry to Him, and He will hear you as He heard the thief on the cross, who cried to Him dying beside him:  ’Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.’—­’To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.’  It makes my heart swell to think of it, my lord.  No cross-questioning of the poor fellow, no preaching to him.  He just took him with Him where He was going, to make a man of him.”

“Well, you know something of my history:  what would you have me do now?—­at once, I mean.  What would the Person you are speaking of have me do?”

“That is not for me to say, my lord.”

“You could give me a hint.”

“No.  God is telling you Himself.  For me to presume to tell you would be to interfere with Him.  What He would have a man do He lets him know in his mind.”

“But what if I had not made up my mind before the last came?”

“Then I fear He would say to you, ’Depart from me, thou worker of iniquity.’”

“That would be hard when another minute might have done it.”

“If another minute would have done it, you would have had it.”

A paroxysm of pain followed, during which Mr. Graham silently left him.

CHAPTER LXX.

END OR BEGINNING?