“What does it mean?”

“Signe, you explain it,” said Mr. Janson.  “You know, you’re a better preacher than I am.”

Signe made no excuses, but went to the little bookshelf and took from it two books, her English and her Norwegian Bibles.  She read for the most part from the English now, but she always had the more familiar one at hand to explain any doubtful passage.

“I vill do wat I can, Mr. Ames.  I cannot read English good, so you must do de reading.”  She opened the book and pointed to the fourth verse of the thirty-eighth chapter of the book of Job.  Rupert read: 

  “Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth?
  declare, if thou hast understanding. * * * When the morning
  stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

“Yes,” said the reader, “that is a great question, indeed.  Where was Job?  Why, he was not yet born.”

“Who are de sons of God?” asked Signe.

“I suppose we—­all of us, in a sense.”

“Of course; and ve all shouted for joy when God He laid de foundation of de earth; so, ve must have been der, and known someting about it.”

“Yes, but how could we?  We were not yet born.”

“No; not in dis world; but ve lived as spiritual children of our Fader in heaven.”

“I don’t know about that,” remarked Rupert, doubtfully.

“Of course you don’t.  Dat’s why I tell you.”

They all smiled at that.  Signe again turned the leaves of her Bible.  “Read here,” said she.

This time it was the first chapter of St. John.  He read the first fourteen verses.

“Dat vil do; now read here.”  She returned to the sixth chapter, sixty-second verse, and he read: 

  “What and if ye see the Son of man ascend up to where He was before.”

She turned to another.  It was the twenty-eighth verse of chapter sixteen: 

  “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world:  again,
  I leave the world and go to the Father.”

Still she made him read one more, the fifth verse of the seventeenth chapter: 

  “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the
  glory which I had with thee before the world was.”

“Now, vat does it all mean, Mr. Ames?”

“I see your point, Miss Dahl.  Christ certainly existed as an intelligent being before He came to this earth—­yes, even before the world was.”

“Certainly; our Savior vas himself as ve.  He vas born, He had a body as ve, and He also had a spirit.  God is de Fader of His spirit and it existed long ago, as you said.  Christ is our Elder Broder.  Ve are of de same family.  If He existed before de vorld, why not ve?  Dat’s right, isn’t it?”

“But couldn’t Christ have been the only one who had a pre-existence?  I believe something is said in your book about the Savior being the only begotten of the Father.”