Madge gazed wonderingly at him. His argument seemed so puerile, if not actually sinful.
“But,” she cried, “I don’t see how that argument holds. To me, it sounds like blasphemy, almost, to say I, as a minister, and we as a church, will not preach the most prominent doctrine of the New Testament, because of the foolish abuse of the teaching by here and there a wild visionary who lets his fancy and whim run away with his judgment. Suppose, dear Homer, some church or minister should say, ‘We won’t preach the doctrine of the Atonement,’ would that save them from the charge of blasphemy, when God says:
“‘If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the Holy City, and from the things which are written in his Book.’”
The pastor gazed at her in amazement. Her fashion of putting the matter gave him small opportunity of replying, so he took refuge in the coarse sneer:—
“Have you turned Doigite?”
With a quick flush in her cheeks, and sudden flashing of eye, Madge replied:—
“If by that you mean, do I see, and have I accepted the revelation of the Word of God, as to the near coming of Christ, then I say ‘yes.’ I am not a Doigite, but I am, thank God, a Christian! A very young one, a very poor and inexperienced one, ’tis true, but still I am one, and am desirous to live to the Lord to whom I have given myself, and, after all I heard from the preacher this morning, I am more than ever determined to serve Christ wholly, and I can quite see how this wondrous fact of the near Return of our Lord will be a new and mighty force to revolutionize all my life.”
An ugly snarl curled the lips of the amazed, discomfited pastor, and he was just beginning a cruel little speech, when one of the Deacons was announced.
Madge left the two men alone. As she passed on to her own room there was a terrible pain at her heart, for the hideous thought came to her:—“Can Homer be truly converted? If he is, how can it be that he flatly refuses to believe what God has so plainly revealed?”