“Perhaps he will have his reward,” she said.  “Although it is many years since I broadened into what I may call the higher unbelief, I have never once suspected, my dear, that merit fails of its reward.  And above all, I have faith in Allan, in his—­well, his psychic nature is so perfectly attuned with the Universal that Allan simply cannot harm himself.  Even when he seems deliberately to invite misfortune, fortune comes instead.  So cheer up, and above all, practise going into the silence and holding the thought of success for him.  I think Allan will attend very acceptably to the mere details.”

CHAPTER VI

THE WALLS OF ST. ANTIPAS FALL AT THE THIRD BLAST

On that dreaded morning a few weeks later, when the young minister faced a thronged St. Antipas at eleven o’clock service, his wife looked up at him from Aunt Bell’s side in a pew well forward—­the pew of Cyrus Browett—­looked up at him in trembling, loving wonder.  Then a little tender half-smile of perfect faith went dreaming along her just-parted lips.  Let the many prototypes of Dives in St. Antipas—­she could see the relentless profile of their chief at her right—­be offended by his rugged speech:  he should find atoning comfort in her new love.  Like Luther, he must stand there to say out the soul of him, and she was prostrate before his brave greatness.

When, at last, he came to read the biting verses of the parable, her heart beat as if it would be out to him, her face paled and hardened with the strain of his ordeal.

     “And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by
     the angels into Abraham’s bosom; the rich man also died and
     was buried.

     “And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and
     seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom.

     “And he cried and said, ’Father Abraham, have mercy on me and
     send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water
     and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’

     “But Abraham said, ’Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime
     receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things;
     but now he is comforted and thou art tormented.’”

The sermon began.  Unflinchingly the preacher pointed out that Dives, apparently, lay in hell for no other reason than that he had been a rich man; no sin was imputed to him; not even unbelief; he had not only transgressed no law, but was doubtless a respectable, God-fearing man of irreproachable morals—­sent to hell for his wealth.

And Lazarus appeared to have won heaven merely by reason of his poverty.  No virtue, no active good conduct, was accredited to him.

Reading with the eye of common understanding, Jesus taught that the rich merited eternal torment by reason of their riches, and the poor merited eternal life by reason of their poverty, a belief that one might hear declared even to-day.  Nor was this view attested solely by this parable.  Jesus railed constantly at those in high places, at the rich and at lawyers, and the chief priests and elders and those in authority—­declaring that he had been sent, not to them, but to the poor who needed a physician.