Uncle Rob got up and said he must go. I walked across the lawn with him.
"Anything more, Chet?" he asked, as we came to the hedge between the houses.
"One," I said.
"What is it?"
I was holding the book tightly in my hands. "Do you really believe that this book is inspired?" I asked, in a very low voice.
Uncle Rob looked at me. "Just what do you mean by 'inspired'?" he asked. "Tell me exactly the sort of a picture that the word brings to you."
I thought for a moment. "Well," I said, "I supposed it meant that the book was dictated, word for word, to the writer, by God."
"And what sort of a God have you in mind?"
I hesitated. I began to see that my thinking had been a lot more inconsistent, even, than I had accused the book of being; but I answered honestly. "Well," I said, "the picture in my mind was of a great big person, looking a good deal like the Michael Angelo statue of Moses,—only immensely bigger; and I thought it meant that he sat there and said what to write."
