“You’re a mountain man,” said the saloon-keeper suddenly, noticing the accent on the last syllable.
Joslin nodded.
“They’re hardy, and sometimes they can keep away from liquor. Well, luck to you.”
He pulled down the apron screening the shelves of bottles, and coming around the end of the bar stood for a moment looking at his visitor. Joslin was sitting now at the table, the glass of liquor close at hand.
“If you’re going to read,” said he, “you’ll have to have a light—I’ll leave this one burning for you.” A moment later he had passed out of his own door, which he left unlocked. Joslin felt for him a strange kinship, so that greater loneliness fell on him when he had left.
The reek of liquor was still in the air, the sawdust itself was redolent of it. But none of this now stirred the blood of David Joslin. Two or three times he raised the half-full glass in front of him level with his eye—and placed it back again untasted on the table. At last, quietly, pale, he took from his coat pocket a heavy volume, which often he had carried there.
There were certain worn places where the book fell open readily. Familiar words stared up at him.
The solitary reader, trained to literal interpretations, pondered what he read. He endeavored to restore the vision of the Garden, the first home of Man. He undertook to conceive the Temptation, to picture the Serpent himself; indeed, tried to think as John Calvin thought when he wrote his words:
But, since it could not have been a trivial offense, but must have been a detestable crime, that was so severely punished by God, we must consider the nature of Adam’s sin, which kindled the dreadful flame of divine wrath against the whole human race.
Augustine properly observes, that pride was the first of all evils. But we may obtain a more complete definition from the nature of the temptation as described by Moses. For as the Woman, by the subtlety of the Serpent, was seduced to discredit the word of God, it is evident that the fall commenced in disobedience. This is also confirmed by Paul, who states that all men were ruined by the disobedience of one.