The Devil

All that lovely and comforting faith in the endless loving mercy of God the Son, the Redeemer of mankind, the Friend and sometime Comrade of man, was to prove useless to him; the gentle creed of the Baptists could not be applied to so vile a case as his; he was at handygrips with the dread Jehovah, the mighty Judge, the offended King of creation.

Three Persons and one God--yes, but such different Persons; and thinking of the triple mystery, he imagined that two of its component parts had probably seen through him from the very beginning of his religious fervor. Only the other part, the part that he wished was the whole, had believed in him and gone on believing in him until it was forbidden to do so any more.

The awe and reverence that he felt while he thought in this manner made him bow his head and keep his eyes humbly downcast, as one not daring to look upward to the heavenly throne; yet, profound and sincere as was his reverential awe, he unhesitatingly translated all the sublime mystery of the skies into the simple terms that alone possess plain meaning to man's limited intelligence. Nothing in the naturally courageous bent of his mind prevented him; everything in his experiences of the Baptists, with their constant habit of homely illustration, encouraged him to do so.

He imagined the First and the Third Persons of the Trinity seated royally but vaguely amid the clouds, all about them a splendor of light like that of sunset or dawn, melodious music faintly perceptible, exquisitely beautiful forms of angels rising on white wings, hovering obediently, fading obediently--but they themselves, the Lords of Life and of Death, the Masters of Time and Space, were two tangible concrete old men--two venerable wise old men--the ultimate strained extended conception of two powerful, honored, high-placed old men. And they talked as men would talk--not in the human vocabulary, but conveying to each other, somehow, human ideas--about the man William Dale.

It was at the period of his conversion or repentance or baptism, and they were speaking to each other of Their Beloved Son and His newest recruit. And God the Father seemed to say that He would hope for the best--although, as they Both knew, Christ was too easily imposed on. And God the Holy Ghost pursed His lips, and shook His head, and said, "Take it from Me, this fellow Dale will turn out badly"--seeming to add or explain that it was a mere pretense and no true repentance. "He has never repented of his crime. But of course he is anxious about his future, and would try any trick to escape the punishment he has richly deserved."