Lackland walked slowly away from the door, along the terrace above the sea, and then more rapidly, as he came out on the rough path along the cliff. The wind blew sharply against him; the moon glittered in the sky, among a multitude of glittering stars; and he heard the sea screaming and tearing at the pebbles, as he sat down on the edge of the cliff, just before getting to Carbis Bay, and looked along the uneasy water, which quivered all over with little waves, hunching themselves up, one after another, and leaping forward, all in a white froth, as they struck upon the beach. 'They are like the lives of men,' thought Lackland; 'all that effort, a struggling onward, a getting to the journey's end: see, that wave is making for just that old tin can, and it has hit it, and the can rolls over and remains, and the wave is gone.' He drew his breath in sharply, drawing up the salt smell of the sea into his nostrils, and sat there for a long time thinking.
No, he had not committed the sin against the Holy Ghost: God could still pardon him. But was it right, was it just, that God should pardon him? One after another of the hard sayings of the Old Testament came into his mind: it was clearly impossible to fulfil every one of those obligations; he could but strive towards them, and fail, and fall back on the mercy of God. At that thought something rose up in him like a pride on behalf of God, and he said to himself: 'I will never ask God to stoop in order that I may rise.' As he said the words he looked round him; the aspect of the place, which he had known all his life, seemed to change, to become dim, to become mysteriously distinct, and he saw that he was sitting where he had sat with the evil spirit in his dream. He got up hastily and went indoors.
Night after night Seaward Lackland went out with the fishing-boats; he did his share of the work just as usual, took his share of the profits, slept by day, and sat awake by night; and, to all about him, he was the same man as before. But an ecstasy was growing up within him which kept his own ears shut to everything but one interior voice; he was meditating a great sacrifice; and a great happiness began to inhabit his soul. 'If God so loved the world,' he repeated, as he had repeated it on the night of his conversion, 'that he gave his only begotten Son ...' He brooded over the words, wondering if a mere man could imitate that supreme surrender. He was only a poor fisherman; the disciples had been that, and Jesus had called them to leave their fathers and their nets and follow him. Both his father and mother were dead; no one in the world depended on him; he was free to give up the world, if he chose, for God. The thought intoxicated him; he saw nothing but the thought, like a light beckoning to him in the darkness: perhaps calling him to destruction. The pride of a vast magnanimity thrilled through him: he would sin the one sin that God could not pardon, in order that God should deal with him according to his justice, and not according to his mercy. He would, as he had dreamed when a child, prefer God's honour to his own; he would give up heaven in order that God might be worthy of his own idea of him. I will sin, he said to himself, the sin against the Holy Ghost, and I will do it for the love of God.
When he had made up his mind, and was full of an exultant inner peace because of it, he still waited and pondered, not knowing quite how he would do the thing he had decided to do. It must be done publicly, and he must suffer for it here, as he was to suffer for it hereafter. It must be done in Carbis Chapel, when his turn came to preach there.
It was some time before his turn came, and he waited with a feverish impatience. He tried to think out what he should say, but he could not imagine anything that seemed to him sufficiently 'obstinate in depravity.' He remembered the phrase, 'when, with mental malignity, he persuades men that the works of the Holy Spirit are the works of the devil'; and he tried to work out an argument, at which he shuddered, which would seem to show Jesus as one working miracles with the help of Satan. At first he could not put two words together, but gradually the task became easier; strange arguments came into his head, which seemed almost plausible to himself; he wondered if it was actually the devil, for his own ends, helping him. He did not write down a word, though he was accustomed to write every word of his sermons; every word, as he thought it, stamped itself in his mind, like a seal pressed into burning wax.
The night before the Sunday on which he was to preach his last sermon, he lay in bed trying to sleep, but unable to close his eyes on the darkness that seemed to palpitate about him. He got out of bed, threw open the window, and leaned out. The night was quite black, he could see nothing, but he could hear the waves splashing upon the sand down below in the bay. A chill wind bit at his face, and made his body shiver. He shut the window, and lay down in bed again, staring for the dawn. He felt cold right through to the heart, and he felt horribly alone. By to-morrow night he would have cut himself adrift; he would be like that seaweed which the sea was tossing upon the sand, and dragging away from the sand. For God's sake he would have cast off God, and he had no other friend. To-morrow he would have none. His resolution never wavered, but he no longer wished the dawn to come quickly; he would have liked, when he saw the first light on the window-panes, to have held back the dawn.
He was to preach in the evening, and in the morning he sat in the chapel and heard the minister from St. Ives telling of the mercy of God. His text was: 'I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.' He spoke of salvation for all; not a word was said about that one exception. Lackland felt a bitter smile twitching at the corners of his lips.
At night he made his own tea as usual, and walked up and down the room, often looking at the clock, until it was time to go across to the chapel. He saw the people passing his window on their way; some of them looked in, saw him, and nodded in a friendly manner. He looked again at the clock; now it was time for him to go, and he went into a corner of the room, knelt down, and prayed to God for strength to deny him. Then he walked rapidly across to the chapel.
The chapel was very full, it seemed to him oppressively hot, and he felt the blood flushing his forehead. Many of the people remembered afterwards that they had noticed something strange in his manner from the moment in which he set foot on the steps of the pulpit. They were quick to recognise the outward signs of a flame lighted within; and they anticipated a fine sermon. His first prayer was very short, but it was like a last confession. Each word seemed to live with a sharp, painful life of its own; the words cried out, and called down heaven for an answer. The text was a verse out of the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew: 'Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.' It was not the first time he had chosen a strange text. He began slowly, and with an unusual solemnity. It seemed to him that they were not understanding him aright. As he went on, his voice, which had at first been low, grew louder; he spoke as if he were hurrying through some message which had been laid upon him to deliver; yet with the calmness of one who has mastered his own fever. He was speaking the most terrible words they had ever heard, and they were at first too bewildered even to think. As he went on, they began to look at one another, wondering if he were mad or they; one or two women near the door got up quietly and went out; men stirred in their seats; a great shudder went through the whole congregation. Blasphemies such as they had never dreamed of filled their ears, dazed their senses; and Seaward Lackland stood there calmly, like a martyr, one of them said afterwards; the sweat stood out on his forehead, but he spoke in an even voice: was it Seaward Lackland or was it the devil who stood there denying God, denying the Holy Spirit? There were those who looked up at the ceiling above them, thinking that the roof would fall in and bury them with the blasphemer. But as heaven did not stir in its own defence, it was for them to assume the defence of heaven. An old class leader stood up in his pew, near the communion-rail, and turning his back on the preacher, said in a loud voice: 'I entreat you all to listen to this man no longer, but to go instantly home, and pray God Almighty to forgive you for what you have heard this day.' Lackland stood silent, and every one in the chapel got up and went quickly out, the old class-leader the last; and Lackland was left alone in the chapel, standing before the open Bible in the pulpit. He fell on his knees and covered his face with his hands: 'O God, forgive me,' he prayed, 'for what I have done for thee to-day.'