“Well, I’ll tell you the reason,” the minister said; his voice was no louder, but it fell with a sledge-hammer emphasis.  He moved a step nearer his companion, and some way caught and held his wavering vision.  “God owns one-tenth of all that stuff you call your own.  You have cheated Him out of His part all these years, and He has carried you over from year to year, hoping that you will pay up without harsh proceedings.  You are a rich man in this world’s goods, but your soul is lean and hungry and naked.  Selfishness and greed have blinded your eyes.  If you could see what a contemptible, good-for-nothing creature you are in God’s sight, you would call on the hills to fall on you.  Why, man, I’d rather take my chances with the gambler, the felon, the drunkard, than with you.  They may have fallen in a moment of strong temptation; but you are a respectable man merely because it costs money to be otherwise.  The Lord can do without your money.  Do not think for a minute that God’s work will not go on.  ‘He shall have dominion from sea to sea,’ but what of you?  You shall lie down and die like the dog.  You shall go out into outer darkness.  The world will not be one bit better because you have passed through it.”

Sam was incoherent with rage.  “See here,” he sputtered, “what do you know about it?  I pay my debts.  Everybody knows that.”

“Hold on, hold on,” the young man said gently, “you pay the debts that the law compels you to pay.  You have to pay your hired help and your threshing bills, and all that, because you would be ‘sued’ if you didn’t.  There is one debt that is left to a man’s honour, the debt he owes to God, and to the poor and the needy.  Do you pay that debt?”

“Well, you’ll never get a cent out of me anyway.  You have a mighty poor way of asking for money—­maybe if you had taken me the right way you might have got some.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Motherwell,” the young man replied with unaffected good humour, “I did not ask you for money at all.  I gave you back what you did give.  No member of our congregation will ask you for any, though there may come a time when you will ask us to take it.”

Sam Motherwell broke into a scornful laugh, and, turning away, went angrily down the street.  The fact that the minister had given him back his money was a severe shock to some of his deep-rooted opinions.  He had always regarded churches as greedy institutions, looking and begging for money from everyone; ministers as parasites on society, living without honest labour, preying on the working man.  Sam’s favourite story was the old one about the woman whose child got a coin stuck in its throat.  She did not send for the doctor, but for the minister!  Sam had always seen considerable truth in this story and had told it to every minister he had met.

He told himself now that he was glad to get back the money, twenty-five dollars was not picked up every day.  But he was not glad.  The very touch of the bills was distasteful to him!