who are about to enter into the kingdom of God.

After we had finished, my eyes, unknown to him, were long fixed on
Archie's face. For a strange interest centres about those whose loins
are girded for long journeys; and I have never outgrown the boyish awe
with which I witnessed the loosening of the ropes that held aerial
travellers to the earth. I have seen some scores of persons die,

"By many a death-bed I have been
And many a sinner's parting seen,"

but the awful tragedy is ever new and familiarity breeds increasing
reverence. Death is a hero to his valet.

"You are not afraid, Archie?" I said at length--the old question that
springs, not to the dying, but to the living lips.

"Afeart!" said Archie, "what wad I be afeart for?"

"You are not afraid to meet your Lord?" I answered, inwardly reproaching
myself for the words.

"Afeart!" repeated the dying man, "afeart to meet ma Lord. Why should I
be feart to meet a Man that died for me?"

I inwardly blessed him for the great reply and engaged its unanswerable
argument for my next Sabbath's sermon. No man dieth unto himself.

"Wull ye dae something for me?" said Archie, suddenly. "Wull ye write to
a man I kent lang syne?"

"Certainly," said I. "Who is the man, Archie?"

"I'll tell ye, gin ma hairt hauds guid a meenit. It's Andra
Mathieson--an' he lives in San Francisco. Him an' me gaed to the schule
thegither in the Auld Country, an' I hadna seen him for nigh fifty year
till last Can'lemas a twalmonth, when I gaed to San Francisco for ma
health. He's awfu' rich. He lives in a graun hoose an' he has a coachman
wi' yin o' thae coats wi' buttons. But I gaed to see him an' I needna
hae been sae feart, for he minded on me, an' he wadna hear o' me bidin'
at the taivern, an' he took me to his graun hoose, an' he was ower guid
to a plain cratur like me.

"Weel, ae mornin', we was sittin', haein' oor crack aboot the auld days,
an' the schule, an' the sheep we herded thegither on the Ettrick hills.
But oor crack aye harkit back to the kirk an' the minister an' the
catechism, an' a' thae deeper things o' auld lang syne. He said as hoo
he had gane far bye thae things, livin' amang the stour o' a' his
siller--but he remarkit that he aften thocht o' the auld ways, an' the
auld tunes, an' the minister wi' his goon an' bands; an' he said he was
fair starvin' for a psalm--or a paraphrase. They dinna sing them in
Ameriky. An' I lilted yin till him--we was lookin'