stately but really pleasant-looking, sat beneath me in the front
pew. Leonard, in his stall, looked oppressed with the weight of
the ceremony.

But his eyes lighted up, I saw, as I gave out my text. It was
from the end of St. John's Gospel. I preached very shortly. I
drew for that poor and earnest-looking congregation the picture
of a dripping missionary as I had seen him. I told of him going
about his business at dawn, cheered by the Easter Feast in front
at the chapel on the hill. I passed up to it by the cheery
camp-fire. I did not forget the smell of breakfast cooking, with
its reminder of home afterwards.

Then I spoke of the charm of the town work that Leonard had been
called to take up once again. I tried to paint it as he dreamed
of it the crowds, the classes, the fog, the scent of the streets.
Then I went higher to the Easter scene, the shore in the morning,
the vision of the altar that dawns on a true man's work however
deep the night of his failure may have been, wheresoever in all
the world he is working.

Leonard looked gratefully at me as I came down the pulpit steps.

While we hurried along from the Service on our way to the station
(Reeve was coming to see me off), I quoted some words to him. We
were just passing that fish-shop.

'Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south; blow upon my garden
that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into
his garden.'

His eyes kindled. 'Yes, old man,' he said; 'I've come into my
garden. How I used to dream of this sort of reek out in Africa!'

I felt a gross materialist as I hurried home to my roses and
red-thorn, leaving him to that visionary garden and those mystical
spices.

THE PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE

I.

'When you have set Thought free for one particular end you cannot
bind her again as you will.' Such is the purport of a certain
historian's dictum, and I have proved the truth of what he says.
Edgar used to go to the Place of Pilgrimage long ago in his
holidays, but I used not to go with him. I did not sympathize
with his veneration overmuch in those times of long ago. But I
respected the desire for hero-worship, and helped him thither
each year that he wanted to visit his shrine. He used to come up
for his long holidays every year from the colony. I had known his
father rather well, and he had not any settled home. His mother
was dead, as well as his father. No one now that knew him need
know what she was like, for he took after h