that I stopped doing the things you told me were wrong and yet went on keeping among the publicans and sinners because He did.  If I’d just stayed with the church-goers, maybe I wouldn’t have felt it; but to think that I couldn’t take a hand in an innocent game o’ cards, or dance with the girls that hadn’t had another bit of amusement—­all that wasn’t very important, but that sort of thing began it.  And then to think that God was in me and not in them!  I began, as I went down the street, wondering who had God in his heart and who hadn’t, that I might know who to trust and who to try to do good to.  And then, most of all, there was all my books that I liked so much.  I didn’t read them any more, for when I thought that God had set every word in the Bible quite true and left all the other books to be true or not just as it happened, I couldn’t think to look at any book but the Bible; for one’s greedy of knowing how things really are—­that’s what one reads for.  So you see it was all in my mind God did things differently one time and another, like making one book and not the others, and only such a small part of things was His; and then when the temptation came, you see, if I’d thought God was in Markham and the girls I could have done my duty and let Him take care of them; but it was because I’d no cause to think that, and believed that He’d let them go, that I couldn’t let them go.  I felt that I’d rather give up the sort of a God I thought on and look after them a bit.  It wasn’t that I thought it out clear at the time; but that was how it came about, and I was ready to kick religion over.  And, sir, if God hadn’t taught me that when I went down to hell He was there, I don’t think I’d want to be religious again; but now I do want it with all my might and main, and I’ll never let go of it, just as I know He won’t let go of me—­no, not if some of these days they have to shovel me into a drunkard’s grave; but I believe that God’s got the same strength for me just as He had when you converted me.”  Toyner looked round him despairingly as a man might look for something that is inexplicably lost.  “I can’t think how it is, but I can’t get hold of His strength.”

The preacher meditated.  It had already been given to him to pray with great persistency and faith for this back-slider, and he had come sure of bringing with him adequate help; but now his hope was less.  In a moment he threw himself upon his knees and prayed aloud:  “Heavenly Father, open the heart of Thine erring child to see that it was the craft and subtlety of the devil that devised for him a temptation he could not resist,—­none other but the devil could have been so subtle; and show him that this same devil, clothed as an angel of light, has feigned Thy voice and whispered in his ear, and that until he returns to the simple faith as it is in the gospel Thou canst not help him as of old.”

“Stop!” (huskily).  “I have not let go of His faith.  His faith was in the Father of sinners.”