"There are things," said John (echoing Norbeck), "which we can very well believe, without demanding a proof for them. We believe the calendar, for example, without possessing a scientific knowledge of the movement of the planets."

"Yes," answered his friend, "we believe it, because our reason does not revolt against it."

"But," said John, "in Galileo's time they revolted against the idea that the earth revolves round the sun. 'He is possessed by a spirit of contradiction,' they said, 'and wishes to be thought original.'"

"We don't live in Galileo's age," returned his friend, "and the enlightened reason of our time rejects the Deity of Christ and everlasting punishment."

"We won't dispute about these things," said John.

"Why not?"

"They are out of the reach of reason."

"Just what I said two years ago when I was a believer."

"You have been—a pietist?"

"Yes."

"Hm! and now you have peace?"

"Yes, I have peace."

"How is that?"

"I learned through a preacher to realise the spirit of true Christianity."

"You are a Christian then?"

"Yes, I acknowledge Christ."

"But you don't believe that he was God?"

"He never said so himself. He called himself God's son, and we are all God's sons."

John's lady friend interrupted the conversation, which was a type of many others in the year 1865. John's curiosity was aroused. There were then, he said to himself, men who did not believe in Christ and yet had peace. Mere criticism would not have disturbed his old ideas of God; the "horror vacui" held him back, till Theodore Parker fell into his hands. Sermons without Christ and hell were what he wanted. And fine sermons they were. It must be confessed that he read them in extreme haste, as he was anxious that his friends and relatives should enjoy them that he might escape their censures. He could not distinguish between the disapproval of others and his own bad conscience, and was so accustomed to consider others right that he fell into conflict with himself.

But in his mind the doctrine of Christ the Judge, the election of grace, the punishments of the last day, all collapsed, as though they had been tottering for a long time. He was astonished at the rapidity of their disappearance. It was as though he laid aside clothes he had outgrown and put on new ones.

One Sunday morning he went with the engineer to the Haga Park. It was spring. The hazel bushes were in bloom, and the anemones were opening. The weather was fairly clear, the air soft and mild after a night's rain. He and his friend discussed the freedom of the will. The pietists had a very wavering conception of the matter. No one had, they said, the power to become a child of God of his own free will. The Holy Spirit must seek one, and thus it was a matter of predestination. John wished to be converted but he could not. He had learned to pray, "Lord, create in me a new will." But how could he be held responsible for his evil will? Yes, he could, answered the pietist, through the Fall, for when man endowed with free will chose the evil, his posterity inherited his evil will, which became perpetually evil and ceased to be free. Man could be delivered from this evil will only through Christ and the gracious work of the Holy Spirit. The New Birth, however, did not depend upon his own will, but on the grace of God. Thus he was not free and at the same time was responsible! Therein lay the false inference.