scene in church came back upon him. There was an almost
breathless pause. Men leaned forward in their pews; the low, almost
whispered, tones of the minister were heard with thrilling distinctness
in even the remotest parts of the house.

"Who?" he repeated, and the stillness grew more profound. Then, slowly,
impressively, almost sadly, he said:

"I cannot hide the truth. As God's ambassador, I must give the message;
and it is this: If you, my brother, are not ministering to the wants of
the hungry and thirsty, the stranger, the sick and in prison, you are
of those who will have to go away."

And the minister shut the Book, and sat down. If, as we have intimated,
the preacher had limited Christian duty to bodily needs, Mr. Braxton
would not have been much exercised in mind.

He had found an easy way to dispose of these merely literal
interpretations of Scripture. Now, his life was brought to the judgment
of a more interior law, as expounded that day. It was in vain that he
endeavored to reject the law; for the more he tried to do this, the
clearer it was seen in the light of perceptive truth.

"God help me, if this be so!" he exclaimed, in a moment of more perfect
realization of what was meant in the Divine Word. "Who shall stand in
the judgment?"

For awhile he endeavored to turn himself away from convictions that
were grounding themselves deeper and deeper every moment,--to shut his
eyes in wilful blindness, and refuse to see in the purer light which
had fallen around him. But this effort only brought his mind into
severer conflict, and consciously removed him to an almost fatal
distance from the paths leading upward to the mountains of peace.

"This is the way, walk ye in it." A clear voice rose above the noise of
strife in his soul, and his soul grew calm and listened. He no longer
wrought at the fruitless task of rejecting the higher truths which were
illustrating his mind, but let them flow in, and by virtue thereof
examined the state of his inner life. Now it was that his eyes were in
a degree opened, so that he could apprehend the profounder meanings of
Scripture. The parables were flooded with new light. He understood, as
he had never understood before, why the guest, unclothed with a wedding
garment, was cast out from the feast; and why the door was shut upon
the virgins who had no oil in their lamps. He had always regarded these
parables as involving a hidden meaning--as intended to convey spiritual
in