I made all sorts of excuses for
myself, but all the time I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool himself.
"So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little girl."
He paused for a long moment.
"I thought _that_ was going to help me. I thought the world and all of
that little girl----" He paused again.
"Well, _she_ died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on down to
hell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything he loves and
everything that loves him. He's on the road to loneliness and despair,
that man. I'm telling you.
"One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main street in
Quinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even money enough to
buy drink with, and yet I was then more'n half drunk, I happened to look
up on the end of that stone wall near the bridge--were you ever there,
Mister?--and I saw the words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit
me hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well,
says I to myself if God is Love, he's the only one that _is_ Love for a
chap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save me--I says. So
I stopped right there in the street, and you may believe it or explain
it anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light came all
around me, and I said, solemn-like, 'I will try God.
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