n of
increasing turbulence with Nature's elements. Thus the storm raged far
below while all around me and above glittered the pure sunlight of
heaven, where I mingled in the blue serene; until at last the thought
came electric-like, as half-divine, here is exemplified in Nature's own
impressive language the simple grandeurs of Truth. While we are in the
valley below, we have ebullitions of discontent and murmurings of
strife; but as we near the summit of Truth our thought becomes elevated.
Then placing our feet on the solid Rock of Ages, we call to those in the
valley below to cease their bickerings and come up higher.

"Truth! Oh, of all the flowers that swing their golden censers in the
parterre of the human heart, none so rich, so rare, as this one flower
of Truth. Other flowers there may be that yield as rich perfume, but
they must be crushed in order that their fragrance become perceptible.
But the soul of this flower courses its way down the garden walk, out
through the deep, dark dell, over the burning plain, up the
mountain-side, _up_ and ever UP it rises into the beautiful blue; all
along the cloudy corridors of the day, _up_ along the misty pathway to
the skies, till it touches the beautiful shore and mingles with the
breath of angels!"

Yet a perverse old man had sat stonily under this sermon--had, even
after so effective a baptism, neglected to undo that which he should
never have done. Moreover, even on the day of this notable sermon, he
was known to have referred to the young man, within the hearing of a
discreet housekeeper, as "the son of his father"--which was an invidious
circumlocution, amounting almost to an epithet. And he had most weakly
continued to grieve for the wayward lost son of his daughter--the
godless boy whom he had driven from his door.

Not even the other bit of news that came a little later had sufficed to
make him repair his injustice; and this, though the report came by the
Reverend Arthur Pelham Gridley, incumbent of the Presbyterian pulpit at
Edom, who could preach sermons the old man liked.

Mr. Gridley, returning from a certain gathering of the brethren at
Denver, had brought this news: That Bernal Linford had been last seen
walking south from Denver, like a common tramp, in the company of a poor
half-witted creature who had aroused some local excitement by declaring
himself to be the son of God, speaking familiarly of the Deity as
"Father."

As this impious person had been