“Oh, I don’t know.  The text is very beautiful, of course, and at times, when people are tiresome and one ought to be nice to them, it is very difficult to act up to.  But—­”

“But you think that ‘awful’ is rather a big adjective to use for so small a duty,” interposed Alan, and the moonlight showed the flicker of a smile upon his face.  Then he continued, gravely, “I doubt whether you yourself realize the full import of the words.  The precept of charity is not merely a code of rules by which to order our conduct to our neighbors; it is the picture of a spiritual condition, and such, where it exists in us, must by its very nature be roused into activity by anything that affects us.  So with this particular injunction, every circumstance in our lives is a challenge to it, and in presence of all alike it admits of one attitude only:  ‘Beareth all things, endureth all things.’  I hope it will be long before that ‘all’ sticks in your gizzard, Evie,—­ before you come face to face with things which nature cannot bear, and yet which must be borne.”

He stopped, his voice quivering; and then after a pause went on again more calmly, “And throughout it is the same.  Moral precepts everywhere, which will admit of no compromise, no limitation, and yet which are at war with our strongest passions.  If one could only interpose some ‘unless,’ some ‘except,’ even an ‘until,’ which should be short of the grave.  But we cannot.  The law is infinite, universal, eternal; there is no escape, no repose.  Resist, strive, endure, that is the recurring cry; that is existence.”

“And peace,” I exclaimed, appealingly.  “Where is there room for peace, if that be true?”

He sighed for answer, and then in a changed and lower tone added, “However thickly the clouds mass, however vainly we search for a coming glimmer in their midst, we never doubt that the sky is still beyond—­beyond and around us, infinite and infinitely restful.”

He raised his eyes as he spoke, and mine followed his.  We had entered the wooded glen.  Through the scanty autumn foliage we could see the stars shining faintly in the dim moonlight, and beyond them the deep illimitable blue.  A dark world it looked, distant and mysterious, and my young spirit rebelled at the consolation offered me.

“Peace seems a long way off,” I whispered.

“It is for me,” he answered, gently; “not necessarily for you.”

“Oh, but I am worse and weaker than you are.  If life is to be all warfare, I must be beaten.  I cannot always be fighting.”

“Cannot you?  Evie, what I have been saying is true of every moral law worth having, of every ideal of life worth striving after, that men have yet conceived.  But it is only half the truth of Christianity.  You know that.  We must strive, for the promise is to him that overcometh; but though our aim be even higher than is that of others, we cannot in the end fail to reach it.  The victory of the Cross is ours.  You know that?  You believe that?”