We lawyers learn to study the faces of our witnesses, to form quick judgments, and to act upon them.  If I did not mistake my man the directest method was the best, and I employed it.

“Mr. Gear,” said I, “I have come to ask you to join my Bible class.”

“Me!” said Mr. Gear unmistakeably surprised.  “I don’t believe in the Bible.”

“So I have heard,” I said quietly.  “And that’s the reason I came to you first.  In fact I do not want you to join my Bible class.  I have not got any Bible class as yet, I want you to join me in getting one up.”

Mr. Gear smiled incredulously.  “You had better get Deacon Goodsole,” said he,—­“or,” and the smile changed from a goodnatured to a sarcastic one, “or Mr. Hardcap.”

“I have no doubt they would either of them join me,” said I.  “But they believe substantially as I have been taught to believe about the Bible.  They have learned to look at it through creeds, and catechisms, and orthodox preaching.  I want to get a fresh look at it.  I want to come to it as I would come to any other book, and to find out what it means, not what it seems to mean to a man who has been bred to believe that it is only the flesh and blood of which the dry bones are the Westminster Assembly’s Catechism.”

“Mr. Laicus,” said Mr. Gear, “I thank you for the honor you do me.  But I don’t believe in the Bible.  I don’t believe it’s the word of God any more than Homer or Tacitus.  I don’t believe those old Hebrews knew any more than we do—­nor half so much.  It says the world was made in six days.  I think it more likely it was six millions of years in making.”

“So do I,” said I.

“It says God rested on the Sabbath day.  I believe He always works, day and night, summer and winter, in every blazing fire, in every gathering storm, in every rushing river, in every growing flower, in every falling leaf.”

He rose as he spoke and stood, now leaning against the mantel piece, now standing erect, his dark eyes flashing, his great forehead seeming to expand with great thoughts, his soul all enkindled with his own eloquence:  for eloquent he really was, and all unconscious of it.

“Your Bible,” said he “shuts God up in a Temple, and in an ark in that, and hides him behind curtains where the High priest can find him but once a year.  My God is every where.  There is no church that can hold him.  The heavens are his home; the earth is his footstool.  All this bright and beautiful world is his temple.  He is in every mountain, in every cloud, in every winter wind and every summer breeze.”

He looked so handsome in his earnest eloquence that I had no heart to interrupt him.  And yet I waited and watched for any opening he might give me, and thought of Jennie, and her prayers at home, and declared to myself by God’s help I would not let this man go till I had caught him and brought him to know the love that now he knew not.