The Devil

Rapidly then he reached the certainty that he wished to have the faith back again. His was an orderly solid mind that could not do with cracks and holes in it, trimness, neatness, and firmness of outer wall were necessary to its well-being; openness to windy doubts ruined it. He felt that an accidental universe was the wrong box for it. He wanted to believe in the God who created order out of chaos, the God who settled cut-and-dried plans for the whole of creation--yes, the God made in man's image, and yet the Maker and Ruler of man.

And some days he did believe, and some days he couldn't. But all at once an idea came, first soothing then cheering him. He thought: "Whether I believe or not, I'll take it for granted. I'll act as if God is real."

He did so, acting as if God were believed in as truly by him as by the most stanch believers. He clung to the idea. It seemed to be the way out of all his troubles. He would make peace with God--then there would be no need to bother about men, or offer any confession of his guilt to them.

He grew calmer now. Doing things had always suited him better than brooding over things. His new determination illuminated the reason for reckless adventures, and lifted their purpose to a higher plane. He thought now that he held his life at God's will--to be given back to God at a moment's notice.

This thought made him calmer still, made him strong, almost made him happy. A life for a life. He would expiate his offense in God's good time. So no danger was too big for William Dale to face; his courage became a byword; gentlefolk and peasants alike admired and wondered.

Out of the consistent course of action came the consistency of the thought that was governing the action. Assumption of the reality of God as a working hypothesis led to conviction of the existence of God.

Yet strangely and unexpectedly the attempt to formalize his faith almost shook his faith out of him again. Although throughout the episode of his acceptance by the Baptists he seemed so stolid and matter-of-fact, he was truly suffering storms of emotion. He fell a prey to old illusions; that unreasoning fear returned; he was thrown back into the state of terrified egoism which rendered lofty impersonal meditation beyond attainment.

That evening when for the first time he went to the Baptist Chapel, the illusion was strong upon him that every man, woman, and child in the congregation had discovered his secret. When they all stood up to sing, it seemed that he was naked, defenseless, utterly at their mercy. With every word of their carefully selected hymn they were telling him that they knew all about him. When they began their third verse, they simply roared a denunciation straight at him: "But thus th' eternal counsel ran: 'Almighty love, arrest that man.'"