le and smiling air of
command. All about him was a light, the source of which David could
not see, but he seemed like a man walking in the light of an open
window, when all around is dark. As he came near, David saw that he
was clad in a rough tunic of some dark stuff, which was girt up with a
girdle at the waist. His head and his feet were bare. Yet though he
seemed but poorly clad, he had the carriage of a great prince, whose
power none would willingly question. But the strangest thing was that
the sea grew calm before his feet, and though the wind was blowing
fiercely, yet it did not stir the hair, which fell somewhat long on
his shoulders, or so much as ruffle his robe. And then there came into
David's head a verse of Scripture where it says, "_What manner of man
is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?_" And then the
answer came suddenly into David's mind, and he knelt down where he was
upon the beach, and waited in a great and silent awe; and presently
that One drew near, and in some way that David did not understand, for
he used no form of speech, his eyes made question of David's soul, and
seemed to read its depths. And then at last He spoke in words that He
had before used to a fisherman beside another sea, and said very
softly, "Follow Me." But He said not how He should be followed; and
presently He seemed to depart in a shining track across the sea, till
the light that went with Him sank like a star upon the verge. Then in
his dream David was troubled, and knew not how to follow; till he
thought that it might be given him, as it was given once to Peter, to
walk dry-shod over the depth; but when he set foot upon the water
there broke so furious a wave at him, that he knew not how to follow.
So he went back and kneeled upon the sand, and said aloud in his
doubt, "What shall I do, Lord?" and as the words sounded on his tongue
he awoke.

Then all that day he pondered how he should find the Lord; for he
knew that though he had a hope in his heart, and though he leaned much
upon God, yet he had not wholly found Him yet. God was sometimes with
him and near to him, but sometimes far withdrawn; and then, for he was
a very simple man, he said to himself, "I will give myself wholly to
the search for my Lord. I will live solitary, and I will fix my mind
upon Him"; for he thought within himself that his hard life, and the
cares of the household in which he had dwelt, had been what had
perhaps kept him outside;