Then, one Sunday evening, the light
suddenly failed. His manuscript was useless, and he found himself
speaking heart to heart to his people. The eloquence for which he was
afterwards famed appeared in a moment, and appeared in the dark! And I
am very fond of that story of the old American soldier. He was stone
blind, but very happy, and always wore his medal on his breast.

'What do you do in these days of darkness?' somebody asked him.

'Do?' he replied almost scornfully. 'Why, I thank God that for fifty
years I had the gift of sight. I saw Abraham Lincoln, and heard the
bugles call for the victory of Truth and Righteousness. I go back to
those scenes now, and realize them anew. I have lost my sight, but
_memory has been born again in the dark_.'

If, therefore, we allow mushrooms to be treated with contempt, simply
because they spring up suddenly, and spring up in the night, we shall
soon find other beautiful things, much more precious, brought under the
same cruel condemnation. And what of a sudden conversion? Think of
_Down in Water Street_, and _Broken Earthenware_, and _Varieties of
Religious Experience_! What of that tremendous happening on the road
to Damascus? The Philippian jailer, too! See him, with a grim smile
of satisfaction, locking the apostles in their terrible dungeon; yet
before the night is through, he is tenderly bathing their stripes and
ministering to them with all the gentle graces of Christian courtesy
and compassion!' A monstrous mushroom that grew in the night,' would
you call it? At any rate, it did not die with the dawn. 'Minerva
births' these, with a vengeance. As for me, I have nothing but
reverence for the mushrooms. They are among the wonders of a very
wondrous world.

III

ONIONS

Just along the old rut-riddled road that winds through the bush on its
way to Bulman's Gully there lives a poor old man who fancies that he is
of no use in the world. I am going to send him an onion. I am
convinced that it will cure him of his most distressing malady. I
shall wrap it up in tissue paper, pack it in a dainty box, tie it with
silk ribbons, and post it without delay. No gift could be more
appropriate. The good man's argument is very plausible, but an onion
will draw out all its defects. He thinks, because he never hears any
voice trumpeting his fame or chanting his praise, that he is therefore
without any real worth or value to his fellow men. Could anything b