“Decide my fate!” he exclaimed again.
“Go and confess,” I whispered to him. My voice failed me, but I whispered it firmly. I took up the New Testament from the table, the Russian translation, and showed him the Gospel of St. John, chapter xii. verse 24:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
I had just been reading that verse when he came in. He read it.
“That’s true,” he said, but he smiled bitterly. “It’s terrible the things you find in those books,” he said, after a pause. “It’s easy enough to thrust them upon one. And who wrote them? Can they have been written by men?”
“The Holy Spirit wrote them,” said I.
“It’s easy for you to prate,” he smiled again, this time almost with hatred.
I took the book again, opened it in another place and showed him the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter x. verse 31. He read:
“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
He read it and simply flung down the book. He was trembling all over.