"Does any one believe in anything?"
"Belief in the essentials of Christianity was never more apparent."
It was a treasured phrase from the morning's sermon.
"What are the essentials?"
"Belief that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son—you know as well as I, child—belief in the atoning blood of the Christ."
"Wouldn't it be awful, Aunt Bell, if you didn't believe in it, and had to be in hell because the serpent persuaded Eve and Eve persuaded Adam to eat the apple—that's the essential foundation of Christianity, isn't it?"
"Why, certainly—you must believe in original sin——"
"I see—here's a note in Bernal's hand, on one of these old papers—evidently written much later than the other: 'The old gentleman says Christmas is losing its deeper significance. What is it? That the Babe of Bethlehem was begotten by his Father to be a sacrifice to its Father—that its blood might atone for the sin of his first pair—and so save from eternal torment the offspring of that pair. God will no longer be appeased by the blood of lambs; nothing but the blood of his son will now atone for the sin of his own creatures. It seems to me the sooner Christmas loses this deeper significance the better. Poor old loving human nature gives it a much more beautiful significance.'"
"My dear," began Aunt Bell, "before I broadened into what I have called the higher unbelief, I should have considered that that young man had a positive genius for blasphemy; now that I have again come into the shadow of the cross, it seems to me that he merely lacks imagination."
"Poor Bernal! Yet he made me believe, though he seemed to believe in nothing himself. He makes me believe now. He calls to me, Aunt Bell—or is it myself calling to him that I hear?