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Updated: May 19, 2025
Indeed, he laughed within himself as he thought what a strange, childish, grotesque notion he had had, he had thought, he had actually thought, that God was only a part of things; that he, Bart Toyner, could turn away from God; that God's power was only with him when he supposed himself to be obedient to Him! Yes, he had thought this; but now he knew that God was all and in all.
When the meeting was over, I came out into the street on a mild September afternoon. The other members of the School Council were with me. There were two clergymen of the party. One of them, a young man with thin, eager face, happened to be at my side. "This Mr. Toyner, whose opinion has been so much consulted, was not here to-day?" I said this interrogatively. "No, ah but you'll see him now.
The physical health which so often comes like a flood and replaces disease at the shrines of idol temples, of Romish saints, or, at the many Protestant homes for faith-healing, had undoubtedly come to Bart Toyner. The stomach that had been inflamed and almost useless, now produced in him a regular appetite for simple nourishing food.
From all around the men assembled to seize Markham, but half a night had elapsed, and it was found that he had made good his escape. When the others had gone, Toyner stood alone before Ann Markham. I have often heard what Toyner looked like in those days.
As she sewed she found herself looking up moment by moment at the window. It was not long before she saw the same figure there again, close now, and in the full light. Her hands dropped nerveless upon her knee; she sat gazing with strained whitened face. The outline of the clothes she associated with the thought of Toyner, but from under the dark hat her father's face looked at her.
This plan, with such modifications as his own good sense suggested, Toyner was willing to adopt. He started earlier in the evening than she had done, having no particular desire for secrecy. He told his friends that he was going to row to The Mills by night, and those who heard him supposed that he had gained some information concerning Markham that he thought it best to report.
Then, when he had the power to live a more individual life of enjoyment and effort, it began to be known little by little that these two had committed that sin against society so hard to forgive, the sin of having their own creed and their own thoughts and their own ways. Toyner was not a preacher. It was not in him to try to change the ideas of those who were doing well with what ideas they had.
It was at some hour of light sunset or sunrise, or it might have been in the blending of the mornings and the evenings in that confusion of mind which takes no heed of time that Toyner first began to know himself.
I would say this: do not let any one imitate the method of life which Toyner and his wife practised unless by prayer he can obtain the power of the unseen holiness to work upon the flux of circumstance; yet do not let those fear to imitate it who have learned the secret of prayer.
Toyner stirred a little when she touched him, and opened his eyes, the same grave grey eyes with which he had looked at her when he bade her good-bye. There was no fever in them, and, as it seemed to her, no lack of sense and thought. Yet he only looked at her gravely, and then seemed to sleep again. The girl sprang upright upon the bank and wrung her hands together.
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