He taxed his heart and intellect to answer her sensible and helpfully, and thus found himself avoiding the logic, the Greek philosophy, the outworn and meaningless phrases of speculation; found himself employing (with extraordinary effect upon them both) the simple words from which many of these theories had been derived.  “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”  What she saw in Horace Bentley, he explained, was God.  God wished us to know how to live, in order that we might find happiness, and therefore Christ taught us that the way to find happiness was to teach others how to live,—­once we found out.  Such was the meaning of Christ’s Incarnation, to teach us how to live in order that we might find God and happiness.  And Hodder translated for her the word Incarnation.

Now, he asked, how were we to recognize God, how might we know how he wished us to live, unless we saw him in human beings, in the souls into which he had entered?  In Mr. Bentley’s soul?  Was this too deep?

She pondered, with flushed face.

“I never had it put to me like that,” she said, presently.  “I never could have known what you meant if I hadn’t seen Mr. Bentley.”

Here was a return flash, for him.  Thus, teaching he taught.  From this germ he was to evolve for himself the sublime truth that the world grown better, not through automatic, soul-saving machinery, but by Personality.

On another occasion she inquired about “original sin;”—­a phrase which had stuck in her memory since the stormings of the Madison preacher.  Here was a demand to try his mettle.

“It means,” he replied after a moment, “that we are all apt to follow the selfish, animal instincts of our matures, to get all we can for ourselves without thinking of others, to seek animal pleasures.  And we always suffer for it.”

“Sure,” she agreed.  “That’s what happened to me.”

“And unless we see and know some one like Mr. Bentley,” he went on, choosing his words, “or discover for ourselves what Christ was, and what he tried to tell us, we go on ’suffering, because we don’t see any way out.  We suffer because we feel that we are useless, that other persons are doing our work.”

“That’s what hell is!” She was very keen.  “Hell’s here,” she repeated.

“Hell may begin here, and so may heaven,” he answered.

“Why, he’s in heaven now!” she exclaimed, “it’s funny I never thought of it before.”  Of course she referred to Mr. Bentley.

Thus; by no accountable process of reasoning, he stumbled into the path which was to lead him to one of the widest and brightest of his vistas, the secret of eternity hidden in the Parable of the Talents!  But it will not do to anticipate this matter . . . .