light and
her cheeks were like fresh-blown roses.

The pastor was startled at the sight of all this innocent happiness
of the child in contrast to his own heart heaviness.

"What are you making?" he asked, and went up to her.

The little girl had got through with her parish long before that;
in fact, she had already pulled it down and started something new.

"If you had only come a minute sooner!" exclaimed the child. "I had
made such a beautiful parish, with both church and schoolhouse--"

"But where is it now?"

"Oh, I've destroyed the parish, and now I'm building a Jerusalem,
and--"

"What?" interrupted the parson. "Have you destroyed the parish in
order to build a Jerusalem?"

"Yes," said Gertrude, "and it was such a fine parish! But we read
about Jerusalem yesterday in school, and now I have pulled down the
parish to build a Jerusalem."

The preacher stood regarding the child. He put his hand to his
forehead and thought a moment, then he said: "It is surely someone
greater than you that speaks through your mouth."

The child's words seemed to him so extraordinarily prophetic that
he kept repeating them to himself, over and over. Gradually his
thoughts drifted back into their old groove, and he began to ponder
the ways of Providence and the means by which He works His will.

Presently he went back to the schoolmaster, his eyes shining with a
new light, and said in his usual cheery tone:

"I'm no longer angry at you, Storm. You are only doing what you
must do. All my life I have been pondering the ways of Providence,
and I can't seem to get any light on them. Nor do I understand this
thing, but I understand that you are doing what you needs must do."

"AND THEY SAW HEAVEN OPEN"

The spring the mission house was built there was a great thaw, and
the Dal River rose to an alarming height. And what quantities of
water that spring brought! It came in showers from the skies; it
came rushing down in streams from the mountainsides, and it welled
out of the earth; water ran in every wheel rut and in every furrow.
All this water found its way to the river, which kept rising higher
and higher, and rolled onward with greater and greater force. It
did not present its usual shiny and placid appearance, but had
turned a dirty brown from all the muddy water that kept flowing in.
The surging stream, filled with logs and cakes of ice, looked
strangely weird and threatening.

At first the grown folks paid no spe