"Because I'm going to be a Seventh-Day Baptist. I'm under conviction. It wouldn't make any difference how long I went to school, the result would be the same. I can't have peace unless I come out openly."
Now it was the heart of Grandfather which threatened to stop beating. Did God hear the prayers of the faithful, or did He not? He poured into a cup some of the steaming brew.
Levis folded his arms and settled himself more closely against the back of the straight pine chair.
"Drink your tea," he commanded. "Then I have something to say to you."
Matthew swallowed the scalding fluid. It warmed him, put heart in him, like a sacramental wine. The storm was almost over; the roar in the chimney had ceased, the roar outside had almost died down; it seemed as though the stage were set for Levis.
"I don't wish to be interrupted," said he. "I'm speaking to my son and you are perfectly welcome to listen. Afterwards you shall have your chance if he wishes to hear you."
Levis began in the fifteenth century.
"The Reformation was a protest against superstition, but only against the more gross superstitions, and the Protestant Church retains to-day the essential superstitions of the Roman Church. The idea of the Son of the Creator of the universe in human form is a fantastic one, now fading from the minds of the more intelligent. Matthew, are you listening to me?"
"Yes," said Matthew in a whisper.