Forrest Crissey

“ When they reached the safe seclusion of the benches Miss Albright sat down and drew aside her skirts to make a place close beside her for the boy. As he shrank timidly upon the edge of the bench, she put her arm around him and said:
"Ezra, something is troubling you. I can't bear to see you go on feeling this way, for I love you, and I want to help you, if you will let me. Nothing helps us so much as to have some true friend to whom we can tell all our troubles and who will understand and love us, whatever may be the matter." ”

“ These words made Ezra gasp. Yet, as he turned towards the horse-sheds, he felt a dim comfort in the thought that in hell he would have the companionship of so brave a soul as Chet.
He hoped that the Sunday-school would last a long time—for he dreaded the thought of the long, still day at the farmhouse, diet would not be back until milking-time; and even if he were to be there throughout the afternoon, the recollection of his terrible words of defiance against the preacher's God would have kept Ezra from companionable intercourse with him. ”

“ Across the factory road, beyond the cemetery, were the Big Woods whose deep shadows had vanquished the grass and brought forth ferns and mosses. In these still depths the partridge reared her speckled brood and foxes burrowed among the roots; and here, in the cool dampness, the groundnuts expanded their delicious bulbs and the crumpled joints of bitter crinkle-root ran their zizgag fingers through beds of buried leaves. She was annoyed at the sight of the intrusive picnic tables and benches and deserted lemonade-bunks a little distance beyond her. ”

“ Then she arose and walked with him towards the factory road.
When they reached the fence he paused a moment in embarrassment, his thumbs caught awkwardly in his pocket slits and his cheeks flushing hotly as he struggled to contrive words in which to express his gratitude. But before he could speak she laid her hands on his shoulders, and looking tenderly into his upturned eyes, said:
"No one will ever know from me what you have told me. Now, Ezra, remember that I understand you and love you, and that your sin, as you call it, is all a mistake. ”

“ Ezra could now barely see the plumes of Miss Albright's hat above the organ and was watching eagerly for some movement which would give him another view of her face, when the preacher arose and read the text:
"Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him, but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." ”

“ His cheeks were whiter than his bleached linen trousers. He had lost consciousness of time and place. He had entered into eternity—the eternity of agony of those guilty of the Unpardonable Sin.
To him the preacher was the direct oracle of God, the voice of Jehovah! He caught each word from the threatening lips and received it as an inspired and revealed truth.
The preacher grew more terrible and fiery as he witnessed his own power. Women wept audibly and men dropped their chins uncomfortably upon their shirt bosoms. ”

“ If a bird should fly from the sun once in a thousand years, and each time carry from the earth one grain not larger than a mustard-seed—when it had carried away the inhabitants of the whole earth and all the buildings and devices of man, had levelled the mountains and eaten into the bowels of the earth, when the world had been wasted by this infinitesimal decay—one grain, one in a thousand years—to a single floating atom to be borne away by this sunbird, then eternity would have just begun ”

“ For Death which could invade such a morning as this and lay its majestic silence upon the lips of his noisiest playmate, instead of those of some old man or woman, was more terribly near him than ever before. ”