“I’ve sized it up this way, Court.  There ain’t any dying!  That’s only an imaginary line like the equator on the map.  It’s heaven or hell, both now and hereafter!  We can begin heaven right now if we want to, and live it on through; and that’s what these folks have done.  You don’t hear them sitting here fighting like the professors used to do, about whether there’s a heaven or a hell!  They know there’s both.  They’re living in one and pulling folks out of the other, hard as they can; and they’re too blamed busy, following out the Bible and seeing it prove itself, to listen to all the twaddle to prove that it ain’t so!  I sure am darned glad you gave me the tip and I got a chance to get in on this little old game, for it’s the best game I know, and the best part about it is it lasts forever!”

Tennelly was away all that summer, doing the fashionable summer resorts and taking a California trip.  The next winter he spent in Washington.  Uncle Ramsey had him at work, and Courtland ran on him in his office once, when he took a hurried trip down to see what he could do for the eight-hour bill.  Tennelly looked grave and sad.  He was touchingly glad to see Courtland.  They did not speak of Gila once, but when Courtland lay in his sleepless sleeper on the return trip that night Tennelly’s face haunted him, the wistfulness in it.

A few months later Tennelly wrote a brief note announcing the birth of a daughter, named Doris Ramsey after his grandmother.  The tone of his letter seemed more cheerful.

Courtland was so happy that winter he could scarcely contain himself.  Pat had great times kidding him about the Western mail.  Courtland was supplying a vacant church down in the old factory district in the city, and Pat often went along.  On one of these Sunday afternoons late in the spring they were walking down a street they did not often take, and suddenly Courtland stopped with an exclamation of dismay and looked up at a great blaring sign wired on a big old-fashioned church: 

     CHURCH OF GOD
       FOR SALE

was the startling statement.

Pat looked up at the sign and then at Courtland’s face, figuring out, as he usually could, what was the matter with Court.

“Gosh!  That’s darned tough luck!” he said, sympathetically.

“It’s terrible!” said Courtland.

“H’m!” said Pat, again.  “Whose fault do you s’pose it is?  Not God’s.  Somebody fell down on his job, I reckon!  Congregation gone to the devil, very likely!”

“Wait!” said Courtland, gravely.  “I must find out.”

He stepped into a little cigar-store and asked some questions.  “You were right, Pat,” he said, when he came out.  “The congregation has gone to the devil.  They have moved up into the more fashionable part of town, and the church is for sale.  There’s only one member of the old church left down here.  I’m going around to see him.  Pat, that sign mustn’t stay up there!  It’s a disgrace to God.”