Winesburg, Ohio: The Strength of God

He was forty years old, and by his nature very silent and reticent.

To preach, standing in the pulpit before the people, was always a hardship for him and from Wednesday morning until Saturday evening he thought of nothing but the two sermons that must be preached on Sunday.

In his prayers there was one note that always predominated.

His wife, a stout, nervous woman, was the daughter of a manufacturer of underwear at Cleveland, Ohio.

The elders of the church liked him because he was quiet and unpretentious and Mrs. White, the banker's wife, thought him scholarly and refined.

The elders of the church liked him because he was quiet and unpretentious and Mrs. White, the banker's wife, thought him scholarly and refined.

The Presbyterian Church held itself somewhat aloof from the other churches of Winesburg.

It was larger and more imposing and its minister was better paid.

In reality he was much in earnest and sometimes suffered prolonged periods of remorse because he could not go crying the word of God in the highways and byways of the town.

"I am a poor stick and that will never really happen to me," he mused dejectedly, and then a patient smile lit up his features.

"I am a poor stick and that will never really happen to me," he mused dejectedly, and then a patient smile lit up his features.

He was horror stricken at the thought of a woman smoking and trembled also to think that his eyes, just raised from the pages of the book of God, had looked upon the bare shoulders and white throat of a woman.

Aunt Elizabeth Swift, a grey competent-looking widow with money in the Winesburg National Bank, lived there with her daughter Kate Swift, a school teacher.

He began to remember that when he was a student in college and occasionally read novels, good although somewhat worldly women, had smoked through the pages of a book that had once fallen into his hands.

With a rush of new determination he worked on his sermons all through the week and forgot, in his zeal to reach the ears and the soul of this new listener, both his embarrassment in the pulpit and the necessity of prayer in the study on Sunday mornings.

From wanting to reach the ears of Kate Swift, and through his sermons to delve into her soul, he began to want also to look again at the figure lying white and quiet in the bed.

The minister almost wept with joy at this deliverance from the carnal desire to "peep" and went back to his own house praising God.

The piece of glass broken out at the corner of the window just nipped off the bare heel of the boy standing motionless and looking with rapt eyes into the face of the Christ.

"Out of my own experience I know that we, who are the ministers of God's word, are beset by the same temptations that assail you," he declared.

Resolutely the minister put the thoughts of the woman in the bed out of his mind and began to be something like a lover in the presence of his wife.

"Intercede for me, Master," he muttered, "keep me in the narrow path intent on Thy work."

He began to talk to God intimately and closely.

He could not understand the temptation that had come to him nor could he fathom the reason for its coming.

For weeks he would go along scarcely thinking of the school teacher and telling himself that he had conquered the carnal desire to look at her body.

The Lord has devised this temptation as a test of my soul and I will grope my way out of darkness into the light of righteousness.

The Lord has devised this temptation as a test of my soul and I will grope my way out of darkness into the light of righteousness.

Along the street to the church went the minister, plowing through the drifts and thinking that this time he would utterly give way to sin.

"If my nature is such that I cannot resist sin, I shall give myself over to sin. At least I shall not be a hypocrite, preaching the word of God with my mind thinking of the shoulders and neck of a woman who does not belong to me."

He began to think that he would get out of the ministry and try some other way of life.

To George Willard, who was tramping up and down in the office undergoing a struggle of his own, he began to talk half incoherently.