in' lips; an' I waukit up, an'
the fever was a' past an' by. I tell't Betsy, an' she grat wi' joy.
'It's i' the Buik,' she said.

"'What's i' the Buik?' I speirt.

"'A little child shall lead them,' Betsy said."

I talked a little while with Geordie as one talks with a shipwrecked
sailor who has gained the shore. He asked me to pray.

"Mak' it easy," he said, "I'm no' far ben the Mystery yet. I'm but a
bairn; but my lips are pure, an' the fever's by."

We knelt together, and I prayed: "O Friend of sinners, help us both, for
we are both sinners. Keep us, blessed Lord, and let his little daughter
be near us both to help us on the way. We will both try our best, and
Thou wilt too. Amen."

My half-written sermon never has been finished. I was constrained to
take another text, and the next Sabbath morn I saw Betsy Lorimer bow her
head in reverent adoration when I gave it out--

"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister?"

XVIII

_HOW ELSIE WON The GATE_

The forest's glory is departed when its giant trees lie low. And, stroke
by stroke, my St. Cuthbert's Kirk was thus bereft of its outstanding
glories. For great men are like great trees, the shelter of all others
and the path-finders towards the sky.

My sun is westering now, and the oft-repeated crash as these mighty
stalwarts fall keeps my heart in almost abiding sadness. For the second
growth gives no promise of a stock which shall be worthy successors to
these noble pioneers, the conquering gladiators of Canada's shadowy
forests, the real makers of her great and portentous national life. And
yet, strange to say, I never knew their real greatness while I lived
among them, sharing in the varied chase, but only when they came to die.

This was especially true of those who boasted far-back highland blood,
for their depths of tenderness and heights of faith and scope of
spiritual vision were sternly hidden till the helplessness of death
betrayed them. Then was the key to their secret life surrendered; then
might all men see the face at the pane. But not till then; for every
stolid feature, every stifled word or glance of tenderness, every
muffled note of religious self-revealment, swelled their life's noble
perjury. To their own hurt they swore, changing not. But at their real
best he saw them who saw them die.

In that ingenuous hour they spoke once more their mother tongue of love
and faith with an accuracy which told of lifelong