uiries to any man touching his religious doubts. A serious
sign: for when we cease to carry such burdens to those who wait near by
as our recognized counsellors and appointed guides, the inference is
that succor for our peculiar need has there been sought in vain. This
succor, if existent at all, will be found elsewhere in one of two
places: either farther away from home in greater minds whose teaching
has not yet reached us; or still nearer home in what remains as the
last court of inquiry and decision: in the mind itself. With greater
intellects more remote the lad had not yet been put in touch; he had
therefore grown reflective, and for nearly a week had been spending the
best powers of his unaided thought in self-examination.

He was sitting one morning at his student's table with his Bible and
note-book opened before him, wrestling with his problems still. The
dormitory was very quiet. A few students remained indoors at work, but
most were absent: some gone into the country to preach trial sermons to
trying congregations; some down in the town; some at the college,
practising hymns, or rehearsing for society exhibitions; some scattered
over the campus, preparing Monday lessons on a spring morning when
animal sap stirs intelligently at its sources and sends up its mingled
currents of new energy and new lassitude.

David had thrown his window wide open, to let in the fine air; his eyes
strayed outward. A few yards away stood a stunted transplanted
locust--one of those uncomplaining asses of the vegetable kingdom whose
mission in life is to carry whatever man imposes. Year after year this
particular tree had remained patiently backed up behind the dormitory,
for the bearing of garments to be dusted or dried. More than once
during the winter, the lad had gazed out of his snow-crusted panes at
this dwarfed donkey of the woods, its feet buried deep in ashes, its
body covered with kitchen wash-rags and Bible students' frozen
underwear. He had reasoned that such soil and such servitude had killed
it.

But as he looked out of his window now, his eyes caught sight of the
early faltering green in which this exile of the forest was still
struggling to clothe itself--its own life vestments. Its enforced and
artificial function as a human clothes-horse had indeed nearly
destroyed it; but wherever a bud survived, there its true office in
nature was asserted, its ancient kind declared, its growth stubbornly
resumed.

The mome