It may seem incredible that one like Mrs. Wylder could believe in God and yet defy him. But it is one thing to believe in a god—it is quite another to believe in God! Every time we grumble at our fate, every time we are displeased, hurt, resentful at this or that which comes to us, every time we do not receive the suffering sent us, “with both hands,” as William Law says, we are of the same spirit with this half-crazy woman. In some fashion, and that a real one, she must have believed in the God against whom she urged her complaint. And it is rather to her praise that, like Job, she did it openly, and not with mere base grumblings in her heart at her fireside. It is mean to believe half-way, to believe in words, and in action deny.

One of four gates stands open to us:

To deny the existence of God, and say we can do without him.

To acknowledge his existence, but say he is not good and act as true men resisting a tyrant.

To say “I wish there were a God,” and be miserable because there is none.

Or to say there must be a God and he must be perfect in goodness or he could not exist, and then give ourselves up to him heart and soul and hands and history.

But what was Wingfold to do about Mrs. Wylder? Was he to allow the simple sheep of his flock to think him afraid of the squire’s lady? or was he to venture an uproar in the church on a Sunday morning? He and his wife often talked the thing over but had arrived at no conclusion. He now told her everything that had happened.

“Isn’t it time to do something?” she said.

“Indeed, I think so—but what?” he answered.

Helen was silent a moment.

“Couldn’t you preach at her?” she said with a little laugh, an odd mingling of doubt and merriment.

“I have always thought that mean,” he said. “I have never done it intentionally. There was that one time,” he said with a smile, “when you thought I was preaching to you.”

“I didn’t know whether to love you or hate you!” laughed Helen. “But this case is unique. The wrong is done in the very eyes of the congregation, for the sake of its being seen. If you said something, you would not be the assailant. You would but accept, not give, the challenge. She has been pitting her position in the pew against yours in the pulpit for too long. She flaunts her novel in your face. The congregation can’t help but think about her and her yellow novel instead of the things you are saying to them. For the sake of the work given you, for the sake of your influence with the people, you must do something.”

“It is God she defies, not me.”