rehearsal within their
secret hearts. When the golden bowl was broken, its holy contents,
flowing free, poured forth the long-imprisoned fragrance.

How many a day, cold and gray, flowers at sunset into rich redemptive
beauty, cheerless avenue leading to its grand Cathedral West! Thus have
I seen these Scottish lives, stern and cold and rayless, break into
flame at evening, in whose light I caught the glory of the very gates of
the City of God.

It was the winter of the strike, whose story I have already told, that
Elsie M'Phatter heard the Voice which calls but once. Long and gentle
had been the slope towards the river, and I held Elsie's hand every step
of the way, myself striving to hold that other Hand which is truly
visible only in the darkness; but the last stage of the journey came
swift and suddenly. About two in the morning I was awakened by the loud
alarm of my door-bell.

The minister knows well that at such an hour his bell is rung only by
eternal winds, and the alarm is an almost certain message that the
rapids are near and that he is wanted at the helm. On Atlantic liners I
have never heard the ominous note that calls the captain from his cabin
to the bridge without thinking of my midnight bell, and that deeper
darkness, and that more awful channel.

It was the doctor's boy who thus summoned me, bidding me hurry to
Elsie's bedside, for the tide was ebbing fast, he said. I was soon on my
way through the frosty night, silently imploring the unseen Pilot that
He would safe into the haven guide. To His great wisdom and His
sheltering love I committed all the case, making oath beneath the silent
stars that I had myself no other hope than this with which I hurried to
yonder dying one. For a man's own heart must swear by the living Lord,
or else he will find no path through the dread wilderness of death for
the unreturning feet.

When the outskirts of the town were but well behind me, I saw in the
distance a solitary light which I knew at once to be the death-chamber
lamp; at sight whereof my heart has never outgrown a strange leap of
trembling fear, like a scout when he catches the first warning gleam of
the enemy's campfire. Yonder, I said to myself, is the battle-field of
a soul, struggling with its last great foe; yonder the central crisis
of all time and all eternity; yonder the heaving breast, the eager,
onward look, the unravelling of mystery, the launching of a soul upon
eternal seas.

No life is