the moss upon which you are treading, and smoke clouds
fill the air you breathe, and the heat singes your hair, while the
roar of the fire fills your ears, and flying sparks set fire to
your clothing.

Thus did Dagson drive the people through flame and smoke and
desolation. They had fire in front of them, fire behind them, and
fire to left and right of them, and saw only destruction ahead of
them. Yet, after taking them through all these horrors, he finally
led them to a green spot in the forest, where it was peaceful and
cool and safe. In the centre of a flowery meadow sat Jesus, with
His arms outstretched toward the fleeing and hunted men and women
who cast themselves at His feet. Now all danger was past, and they
suffered no further distress nor persecution.

Dagson spoke as he himself felt. If he could only lay himself down
at Jesus' feet, a sense of great peace and serenity would come to
him, and he had no more fear of the snares of the world.

After the service there was great emotional excitement. Many
persons rushed up to the speaker and thanked him, with tears
streaming down their faces. They told him that his words had
awakened them to a true faith in God. But all this time Karin sat
unmoved. When Dagson had finished speaking, she raised her heavy
eyelids and looked up at him, as if reproaching him for not having
given her anything. Just then some one outside cried in a voice
loud enough to be heard by the entire congregation:

"Woe, woe, woe to those who give stones for bread! Woe, woe, woe to
those who give stones for bread!"

Whereupon everybody rushed out, curious to see who it was that had
spoken those words, and Karin was left sitting there in her
helplessness. Presently members of her own household came back, and
told her that the person who had cried out like that was a tall,
dark stranger. He and a pretty, fair-haired woman had been seen
coming down the road, in a cart, during the service. They had
stopped to listen, and just as they were about to drive on, the man
had risen up and spoken. Some folks thought they knew the woman.
They said she was one of Strong Ingmar's daughters--one of those
who had gone to America and married there. The man was evidently
her husband. Of course it is not so easy to recognize a person whom
one has known as a young girl in the ordinary peasant costume, when
she comes back a grown woman dressed up in city clothes.

Karin and the stranger were evidently of the sa