“How did you like the sermon?” he asked Winifred when he had expressed his own opinion.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Winifred hesitatingly.  “He said some lovely things.  That illustration from Greek mythology was beautiful.  I am sure I shall remember that.  But I wish,” she added innocently, “that he had said more about the Lord.”

“So do I,” said Hubert decidedly.

They walked on in silence for awhile and then Hubert spoke.

“I am not a qualified judge of sermons,” he said, “but I would a hundred times rather read the Gospel of John.”

“Are you still reading it?” said Winifred,

“Yes.”

“I wish we might read it together,” she said wistfully.

“We might,” he said.  “Shall we begin to-day?”

“By all means.  But I can’t read Greek,” she added doubtfully.  She had observed the Greek Testament with its fresh markings.

He laughed.  “But fortunately I can read English,” he said.  And so it was arranged.

CHAPTER VIII

NOT OF THE WORLD

That afternoon found Hubert and Winifred with their books, looking about for the most suitable place to read.  Somnolent sounds from the couch in the library warned them not to locate there.  They decided on a cool window-seat in the drawing-room overlooking the garden.  There they settled themselves and found their places.  It was decided to begin at the point Hubert had reached, which was the seventeenth chapter.  Before beginning to read Hubert shaded his eyes with his hand for a moment to ask, as had become his wont since he first sought to know God, for light upon the Word.  Winifred understood the act and joined him silently.

He began reading reverently and slowly.  The simple, stately words fell very sweetly upon their ears.  They paused often, so as to understand more fully what they read.  They read with the intent earnestness of those who explore new territory, and who have immense interests in things discovered.  They lingered first over the second verse: 

“As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given him.”

“‘As many as thou hast given him,’” repeated Winifred.  “What do you think that means, Hubert?”

Hubert gazed into vacancy meditatively.  “I don’t know,” he announced, very slowly; “there is a profound mystery here which I have seen in earlier chapters.  I do not see the point of meeting between two laws that seem almost contradictory.  But one point seems very clear, and it meets us very simply on our human side:  that is, that the one who ’is willing to do His will’ is the one whom the Father ‘gives’ to Jesus Christ.”

“It is very sweet,” said Winifred, “to think of being given by the Father to Him.  It seems surer, somehow, than to just give oneself.”

Hubert’s deep eyes kindled and glowed with a liquid fire.  “Yes,” he said in a suppressed voice, “it is wonderful.”  He was standing on ground that had not by long habit grown coldly theological, but was instinct with life to him through a new and vital experience.