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VI
THE DEVIL IN EDEN
If ever the innermost meaning of the Word was in dispute in Capel Sion the Big Man sent an angel in a cloud with a message to Old Ianto of the Road, and this message Old Ianto interpreted to the congregation. Thus, honoured above men, Ianto got puffed up and vain-glorious, whereat the Big Man sent a tempter to test him.
The tempter, in the flesh of a tramp, came to Manteg in the quiet of a Sabbath eve, and he found Ianto setting his thoughts in tune with Sion on the bank of the waters which are against the hedge of Abel Shones’s garden.
The tramp stood over Old Ianto, and spoke to him:
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