Free Bright Arrows by Grace Livingston Hill Page A

thinkable that such triflers as Caspar could actually dare to flout the tenets of the Christian religion. Oh, she had of course heard of unbelief before, but she had always thought of unbelievers as low-down, vicious people who had not culture or education.
    So carefully her father had guarded her that she had been sent to schools that did not spend their time in breaking down respectable religious beliefs that had carried generations of good people along in a placid faith and trust. So now Eden was bewildered that her old playmate, who had been brought up in what she had always thought was a respectable way, had gone back on basic doctrines and beliefs. Somewhere she would have to find a way to answer this if he ever came back to discuss the matter with her--or if anybody else from such a war experience as Caspar had had should come her way. Probably her father knew ways to answer such things and bring unbelievers to see the right, but she couldn't recall that he had ever given her proofs to store in her mind. Yet she was sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that her father had believed in God and had gone to heaven, trusting in the blood of Christ. She was sure he was expecting to go straight to God in heaven when he said good-bye to her and that her dear mother would be there also. She knew from her mother's letters that her father and mother had often talked these things over and agreed and were expecting to be together for all eternity in the presence of God. That wasn't enough to help her tell other people about it. She had to know why wise Christian ministers and saints believed these things. It had never troubled her before. It was the accepted belief of her family, her church, her Christian friends.
    But now a new group had come to her knowledge. Not just unbelievers in far foreign lands, nor even gangsters who had never wanted to be good, but a group of whom Caspar, at present, was a representative--a group of young fellows, who, before they went to war, worked in churches, made speeches, and prayed in meetings. And now that they had come back from facing death, they had come to the belief that there was no God, no salvation, no right; that it was all a line of talk. She hadn't talked with others who said so, but Caspar seemed to take it for granted that she knew that all who were not softies felt that way about religion now, and she had to know. She had to know for sure how to prove that God was still God and could save, and heaven was real, or else she could not go on even for herself. And how else could she help others to find the way back to right living? How could she ever help Caspar, supposing he never came back again after the way she had treated him? There must be a way to find out why reasonable people believed all that.
    She decided finally that she would go to church next Sunday and see if anything was said that would bring her light on the problem. And if she couldn't get anything out of the church, she would go to the minister and ask him questions.
    It was not that her own faith in God was shaken. She believed in her father's God too much to be troubled on her own account, but now that the question had been brought up, she felt she must understand it. It was doubtless true that her father had talked about such things long ago, when she was very young, and had merely supposed that she had understood it and so said nothing more. Just as a teacher would not be continually harping on the alphabet after one had learned to read.
    So thinking it out, Eden went back to the book she had been idly looking through, the book that had come to her father since his death, evidently ordered by him from the publisher.
    And now she noticed for the first time the subject of this book, whose perusal Caspar's entrance had interrupted; it was religious. Ah, perhaps this was just what she was looking for. Perhaps this would give proofs and arguments that there was a God, arguments that she could use if she ever had to talk