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toward the disputants. He held up a finger at the banker and asked in an assured and faintly supercilious tone, "Perry, you talkin' about God not approving of this and that—what makes you think there is any God?"

The whole crowd came to a horrified hush at this new departure. The banker looked at his new antagonist.

"Now, look here, Belshue," he said in a different tone, "I'm not going to argue with any infidel. Unless you believe in God, you—well, you just ain't human, that's all."

"You won't argue because you kain't prove it," said Belshue, staring at the banker with gloomy eyes.

"Prove it! I don't have to prove it, I know it!"

"How do you know it?"

"The same way I know I'm talking to you. I go to my heavenly Father and He speaks to me just as plain as you're speaking now. Once I was prayin' to Him when my little daughter died and He come down and touched my head and blessed me. Praise His holy name! Praise God! He brought me a peace you will never know, Andy Belshue, till you find God, too. Find Him, brother, find Him!"

The banker's thin face lighted up as he related these supernatural experiences.

"That was imagination," stated the jeweller, who knew every inch of the ground he was defending. "That doesn't prove there is any God."

"My imagination!" cried the banker, turning paler. "Don't you think I know my own Father's voice!"

The crowd was, by common impulse, turning back to the village now, the disputants with them. They would probably have stayed and played ball had not Belshue begun his shocking argument. Abner Teeftallow and his friend Zed Parrum followed behind the wranglers. Abner could hardly believe his ears.

"Zed, don't that man Belshue believe in no God?" he whispered incredulously.

"No, he's a infidel," returned Zed in the same tone.