was no longer desired under that roof. The second summed up the
life-long estimate which had been formed of his character before he had
gone away.

Therefore he had worked as never even in the old preparatory days. So
long as he remained there, he must at least earn daily bread. More than
that, he must make good, as soon as possible, the money spent at
college. So he sent away the hired negro man; he undertook the work
done by him and more: the care of the stock, the wood cutting,
everything that a man can be required to do on a farm in winter. Of
bright days he broke hemp. Nothing had touched David so deeply as the
discovery in one corner of the farm of that field of hemp: his father
had secretly raised it to be a surprise to him, to help him through his
ministerial studies. This David had learned from his mother; his father
had avoided mention of it: it might rot in the field! In equal silence
David had set about breaking it; and sometimes at night his father
would show enough interest merely to ask some questions regarding the
day's work.

Yet, notwithstanding this impending tragedy with his father, and
distress at their reduced circumstances caused by his expenses at
college, David, during these two months, had entered into much new
happiness.

The doubts which had racked him for many months were ended. He had
reached a decision not to enter the ministry; had stripped his mind
clean and clear of dogmas. The theologies of his day, vast, tangled
thickets of thorns overspreading the simple footpath of the pious
pilgrim mind, interfered with him no more. It was not now necessary for
him to think or preach that any particular church with which he might
identify himself was right, the rest of the human race wrong. He did
not now have to believe that any soul was in danger of eternal
damnation for disagreeing with him. Release from these things left his
religious spirit more lofty and alive than ever.

For, moreover, David had set his feet a brief space on the wide plains
of living-knowledge; he had encountered through their works many of the
great minds of his century, been reached by the sublime
thought-movements of his time, heard the deep roar of the spirit's
ocean. Amid coarse, daily labor once more, amid the penury and discord
in that ruined farmhouse, one true secret of happiness with David was
the recollection of all the noble things of human life which he had
discovered, and to which he meant to work his way