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Line 42: Two brothers, John and Dan McTavish, live with their mother Martha, a believer in [[Biblical inerrancy]]. The two brothers make opposite decisions; John follows his mother's teaching of the Ten Commandments and becomes a carpenter living on meager earnings, and Dan, now an avowed [[atheism|atheist]] who is convinced that the Commandments never offer him anything, vows to break every one of them and rise to the top. Martha evicts Dan from her house. He stops for a bite to eat at a lunch wagon. There, Mary, an impoverished but beautiful young woman, steals a bite of Dan's sandwich and triggers a madcap chase after her. She takes refuge in the McTavish house, where John convinces his mother to take Mary in for the night. John also convinces Dan to set aside his grievance and stay; he also introduces Dan to Mary. Dan quickly wins Mary over with his freewheeling ways. Martha's strict observance of the Sabbath causes friction when Dan and Mary begin dancing on a Sunday, and, although John tries to convince his mother to show grace, Dan and Mary decide it is time to run off together. (John had prepared an engagement ring for Mary, and shows it to her; but seeing Mary's affection for Dan, John pretends that Dan gave the ring.) Three years later, Dan has become a corrupt contractor. He earns a contract to build a massive cathedral and decides to cut the amount of cement in the concrete to dangerously low levels, pocketing the money saved and becoming very rich. He puts John, still a bachelor, in charge of construction, hoping to use him as a conduit to provide the gifts to their mother that she refuses to accept from Dan. Dan cheats on Mary with Sally, a Eurasian adulteress. One day, Martha comes to visit John at his work site; a wall collapses on her. Fatally injured, with her last words, she tells Dan that she spent too much time trying to teach him to fear God and not enough time on God's love. | |||