He had a wife, a country girl with a babe lying at her breast, who
got supper for them, and who, after supper, sat in the shadows in a corner
of the living-room listening to their talk.
The two men sat together. Sam smoked his pipe and the minister poked at a
coal fire that burned in a stove. They talked of God and of what the
thought of God meant to men; but the young minister did not try to give
Sam an answer to his problem; on the contrary, Sam found him strikingly
dissatisfied and unhappy in his way of life.
"There is no spirit of God here," he said, poking viciously at the coals
in the stove. "The people here do not want me to talk to them of God. They
have no curiosity about what He wants of them nor of why He has put them
here. They want me to tell them of a city in the sky, a kind of glorified
Dayton, Ohio, to which they can go when they have finished this life of
work and of putting money in the savings bank."
For several days Sam stayed with the clergyman, driving about the country
with him and talking of God. In the evening they sat in the house,
continuing their talks, and on Sunday Sam went to hear the man preach in
his church.
The sermon was a disappointment to Sam.
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