move or cry out, but you cannot, and the arms
begin to embrace you and draw you towards the great body. Just so I
feel about the day of the ceremony that shall take me into the body
of which I was never destined to be a member.

"Are you living in a garret? Are you subsisting on a crust? Happy,
happy fellow! But, thank God, the ordination does not take place
until next year, and perhaps in that time I may find some means of
escape. If I do not, I know that I shall have your sympathy; but
don't express it. Ever sincerely yours, BRENT."

But the year was passing, and nothing happened to release him. He found
himself being pushed forward at the next term with unusual rapidity, but
he did not mind it; the work rather gave him relief from more unpleasant
thoughts. He went at it with eagerness and mastered it with ease. His
fellow-students looked on him with envy, but he went on his way
unheeding and worked for the very love of being active, until one day he
understood.

It was nearing the end of the term when a fellow-student remarked to
him, "Well, Brent, it is n't every man that could have done it, but you
'll get your reward in a month or so now."

"What do you mean?" asked Brent. "Done what?"

"Now don't be modest," rejoined the other; "I am really glad to see you
do it. I have no envy."

"Really, Barker, I don't understand you."

"Why, I mean you are finishing two years in one."

"Oh, pshaw! it will hardly amount to that."

"Oh, well, you will get in with the senior class men."

"Get in with the senior class!"

"It will be kind of nice, a year before your time, to be standing in the
way of any appointive plums that may happen to fall; and then you don't
have to go miles away from home before you can be made a full-fledged
shepherd. Well, here is my hand on it anyway."

Brent took the proffered hand in an almost dazed condition. It had all
suddenly flashed across his mind, the reason for his haste and his added
work. What a blind fool he had been!

The Church Conference met at Dexter that year, and they had hurried him
through in order that he might be ready for ordination thereat.

Alleging illness as an excuse, he did not appear at recitation that day.
The shock had come too suddenly for him. Was he thus to be entrapped?
Could he do nothing? He felt that ordination would bind him for ever to
the distasteful work. He had only a month in which to prevent it. He
wou