We wish our father hadn't brought us to town, and we were out on the karoo.

Then the man in the pulpit begins to preach.

His text is "He that believeth not shall be damned." The day before the magistrate's clerk, who was an atheist, has died in the street struck by lightning.
The man in the pulpit mentions no name; but he talks of "The hand of God made visible amongst us." He tells us how, when the white stroke fell, quivering and naked, the soul fled, robbed of his earthly filament, and lay at the footstool of God; how over its head has been poured out the wrath of the Mighty One, whose existence it has denied; and, quivering and terrified, it has fled to the everlasting shade.
We, as we listen, half start up; every drop of blood in our body has rushed to our head.

He lies! he lies! he lies! That man in the pulpit lies! Will no one stop him?
Have none of them heard--do none of them know, that when the poor, dark soul shut its eyes on earth it opened them in the still light of heaven?
that there is no wrath where God's face is?
that if one could once creep to the footstool of God, there is everlasting peace there, like the fresh stillness of the early morning?
While the atheist lay wondering and afraid, God bent down and said: "My child, here I am--I, whom you have not known; I, whom you have not believed in; I am here.

I sent My messenger, the white sheet-lightning, to call you home.