of excitement. He is calm only at
intervals. The old school-days seem present to him again; he talks of
his fight with Phil Elderkin as if it happened yesterday.

"Yet I like Phil," he says (to himself), "and Rose is like Amanda, the
divine Amanda. No--not she. I've forgotten: it's the French girl. She's
a ---- Pah! who cares? She's as pure as heaven; she's an angel. Adele!
Adele! Not good enough! I'm not good enough. Very well, very well, now
I'll be bad enough! Clouds, wrangles, doubts! Is it my fault? _AEdificabo
meam Ecclesiam._ How they kneel! Puppets! mummers! No, not mummers, they
see a Christ. What if they see it in a picture? You see him in words.
Both in earnest. Belief--belief! That is best. Adele, Adele, I believe!"

The Doctor is a pained listener of this incoherent talk of his son. "I
am afraid,--I am afraid," he murmurs to himself, "that he has no clear
views of the great scheme of the Atonement."

The next day Reuben is himself once more, but feeble, to a degree that
startles the household. It is a charming morning of later September;
the window is wide open, and the sick one looks out over a stretch of
orchard (he knew its every tree), and upon wooded hills beyond (he knew
every coppice and thicket), and upon a background of sky over which a
few dappled white clouds floated at rest.

"It is most beautiful!" said Reuben.

"All things that He has made are beautiful," said the Doctor; and
thereupon he seeks to explore his way into the secrets of Reuben's
religious experience,--employing, as he was wont to do, all the
Westminster formulas by which his own belief stood fast.

"Father, father, the words are stumbling-blocks to me," says the son.

"I would to God, Reuben, that I could make my language always clear."

"No, father, no man can, in measuring the Divine mysteries. We must
carry this draggled earth-dress with us always,--always in some sort
fashionists, even in our soberest opinions. The robes of light are worn
only Beyond. Thought, at the best, is hampered by this clog of language,
that tempts, obscures, misleads."

"And do you see any light, my son?"

"I hope and tremble. A great light is before me; it shines back upon
outlines of doctrines and creeds where I have floundered for many a
year."

"But some are clear,--some are clear, Reuben!"

"Before, all seems clear; but behind--"

"And yet, Reuben," (the Doctor cannot forbear the discussion,) "there is
the cross,--Election, Adoptio