"He is not a
good God!" Tobias would cry in his new "repentance." "His religion is too
weak. The devil is stronger than Him. I want a stronger religion. Pagh, I
want somebody big enough to kill this fanden inside me."
The crowd around the soapbox evangelist is rather slight. The night is
cold. The wind bites and the street has a dismal air. The evangelist
stands around the corner from the old book store in whose windows
thousands of musty volumes are piled like the bones of hermits. The man
who owns this curious book store is a sun-worshipper. And the evangelist
on the soapbox is a friend of his.
The slight crowd listens. Peace comes from the sun. The sun is the source
of light and of health. It is the eye of God. Terrible by day and watching
by night. It is the fire of life. The slight crowd grins and the
evangelist, his mind bubbling with a cabalistic jargon remembered out of
musty books, tries to explain something that seems vivid in his heart but
vague to his tongue.
They will drop away soon because the night is cold and the evangelist a
bit too nutty for serious attention. But here comes Tobias Wooden-Leg and
some of the listeners grin and nudge one another. Tobias, with his voice
hoarse and his blue eyes shining with wrath--wrath at himself and wrath at
the God who had abandoned him, unable to cope with the one on the window
sill.
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