as well.
Side by side they walked for miles in that pale and silvery moonlight.
Not one word was spoken. Grief had paralysed their vocal powers; and
their eyes were streaming with another eloquence. They wrung each
other's hands at length, and parted without even saying good-night!

At the next Conference it was the junior member of the deputation who
presented the report. He simply stated that the delegation had visited
the district without having been able to reconcile the differences that
had arisen in the little congregation. The Assembly formally adopted
the report, and the deputation was thanked for its services. It seemed
a very futile business. And yet one member of that deputation has
always felt that life was strangely enriched by the happenings of that
memorable night. It puts iron into the blood to spend an hour with men
to whom the claim of conscience is supreme, and who love truth with so
deathless an affection that the purest and noblest of other loves
cannot dethrone it.

VII

TRAMP! TRAMP! TRAMP

I

Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp! It was like the regular and rhythmic beat
of a great machine. File after file, column after column, I watched
the troops pass by. Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp! On they went, and on,
and on; all in perfect time and step; tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp! It
reminded me of that haunting passage that tells us that 'all these men
of war that could keep rank came with a perfect heart to make David
king over all Israel.' _They could keep rank_! It is a suggestive
record. There is more in it than appears on the surface. _They could
keep rank_! Right! Left! Right! Left! Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!
All these men of war _that could keep rank_ came with a perfect heart
to make David king over all Israel.

II

Half the art of life lies in learning to keep step. It is a great
thing--a very great thing--to be able to get on with other people. Let
me indulge in a little autobiography. I once had a most extraordinary
experience, an experience so altogether amazing that all subsequent
experiences appear like the veriest commonplaces in comparison. The
fact is, I was born. Such a thing had never happened to me before, and
I was utterly bewildered. I did not know what to make of it. My first
impression was that I was all alone and that I had the solar system all
to myself. Like Robinson Crusoe, I fancied myself monarch of all I
surveyed. But then, like Robin