Then the preacher strove in words to show him the greatness of his error, and why he could not hold to it and live in the victory which faith gives.  It was no narrow or weak view that the preacher took of the universe and God’s scheme for its salvation; for he too lived at a time when men were learning more of the love of God, and he too had spoken with God.  The hard outline of his creed had grown luminous, fringed with the divine light from beyond, as the bars of prison windows grow dazzling and fade when the prisoner looks at the sun.  All that the preacher said was wise and strong, and the only reason he failed to convince was that Toyner felt that the thought in which his own storm-tossed soul had anchored was a little wiser and stronger—­only a little, for there was not a great difference between them, after all.

“I take in all that you say, sir; but you see I can’t help feeling sure that it’s true that God is living with us as much and as true when we’re in the worst sort of sin, and the greater sin that it brings—­for the punishment of sin is more and more sin—­and being sure, I know that everything else that is true will come to fit in with it, though I may not be able rightly to put it in now, and what won’t come to fit in with it can’t be true.”

The preacher perceived that the evil which he had set himself to slay was giantlike in strength.  He chose him smooth stones for his sling.  His heart was growing heavy with fear of failure, his spirit within him still raised its face heavenward in unceasing prayer.  He began to tell the history of God’s ways with man from the first.  He spoke of Abraham.  He urged that the great strength had always come to men who had trusted God’s word against reason and against sight.  And he saw then that for the first time Toyner raised up his head and seemed stirred with a reviving strength.

The preacher paused, hoping to hear some encouraging word in correspondence to the gesture, but none came.

Then he spoke of Moses and of Joshua, for he was following the tale of God’s rejection of sinful nations.

Toyner answered now.  His eye was clearer, his hand steadier.  “I have read there’s many that say that God could not have told His people to slay whole nations, men, women, and children.  I think it’s the shallowest thing that was ever said.  I don’t know about His telling people to do it—­that may be a poem; but that He gave it to them to do, that He gives it to winds and floods and fires and plagues to do, time and time and again, is as certain as that if there’s a God He must have things His way or He isn’t God.  But I don’t believe that in this world, or in the next, He ever left man, woman, or child, but lived with each one all through the sin and the destruction.  And, sir, I take it that men couldn’t see that until at last there came One who looked into God’s heart and saw the truth, and He wanted to tell it, but there were no words, so though He had power in Him to be King over the whole earth, He chose instead to be the companion of sinners, and to go down into all the depths of pain and shame and death and hell.  And He said His Father had been doing it always, and He did it to show forth the Father.  That is what it means.  I am sure that is what it means.”