st ha' dropped
it--"

"Well, _I_ didn', anyway--an' that's honest." The corporal handed it
over with just a trace of reluctance. "But it only shows," he added,
eyeing Nicky-Nan thoughtfully, "as there's nothing in this world so
deceptive as appearances."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SECOND SERMON.

"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's
sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth
as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that
burneth."

". . . And thou shalt be called by a new name. . . . Thou shalt
no more be termed _Forsaken_; neither shall thy land be termed
_Desolate_: but thou shalt be called _Hephzi-bah_, and thy land
_Beulah_: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall
be married. . . ."

". . . I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which
shall never hold their peace day nor night."

". . . The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm
of his strength, 'Surely I will no more give thy corn to be
meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not
drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured. But they
that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord; and
they that have brought it together shall drink it . . . in the
courts of my holiness.'"

"Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the
people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones;
lift up a standard for the people."

"Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world,
'Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh;
behold, his reward is with him,' and his work before him.
And they shall call them 'The Holy People, the Redeemed of the
Lord,' and thou shalt be called, '_Sought out, A City Not
Forsaken_.'"

Mr Hambly closed the great Book upon the cushion and leaned forward,
resting his arms over it.

"I want you," said he after a pause, very solemnly and slowly,
"to apply those words not only to ourselves, of whom we are
accustomed to think, too particularly and too complacently, as a
chosen people; but to the whole as the free peoples of Western
Europe, with whom to-day we stand in alliance and as one. If you
apply them at all particularly, let France and Belgium be first in
your minds, with their harvest-fields and vineyards, as you listen