school,
when his captain called him into the game, though he was only a
substitute.
He could not look up, yet he could see the face of the Presence now.
What was there so strangely familiar, as if he had been looking upon
that face but a few moments before? He knew. It was that brave spirit
come back from the pit. Come, perhaps, to lead him out of this daze of
smoke and darkness. He spoke, and his own voice sounded glad and
ringing:
"I know you now. You are Stephen Marshall. You were in college. You were
down there in the theater just now, saving men."
"Yes, I was in college," the Voice spoke, "and I was down there just
now, saving men. But I am not Stephen Marshall. Look again."
And suddenly he understood.
"Then you are Stephen Marshall's Christ! The Christ he spoke of in the
class that day!"
"Yes, I am Stephen Marshall's Christ. He let me live in Him. I am the
Christ you sneered at and disbelieved!"
He looked and his heart was stricken with shame.
"I did not understand. It was against reason. But had not seen you
then."
"And now?"
"Now? What do you want of me?"
"You shall be shown."
The smoke ebbed low and swung away his consciousness, and even the place
grew dim about him, but the Presence was there. Always through suspended
space as he was borne along, and after, when the smoke gave way, and
air, blessed air, was wafted in, there was the Presence. If it had not
been for that he could not have borne the awfulness of nothing that
surrounded him.
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