at labour, under the guidance of
self-discipline, became service. Job's account of his conversation with
Abe made all this as clear as sunlight, but I was still somewhat puzzled
by the story of the inner voice.

"What do you think Abe meant by the inner voice?" I asked.

"Nay," replied Job, "I can't tell. But what he said were true. I'm sure
o' that. There were a look in his een that I'd niver seen theer afore;
'twere as if t' inner voice were speakin' through his een as well as
through his mouth."

"It's something more than conscience," I went on, speaking as much to
myself as to Job. "Conscience tells a man what it is his duty to do, but
conscience does not teach him how to do things."

We were both silent for a few moments, pondering over the problem of the
inner voice. Then a thought flashed through my mind and, rising from my
seat, I went to my bookshelves and took down a volume of Browning's
poems. I eagerly turned over the pages of _Paracelsus_, read a few
verses to myself, and then exclaimed:

"I know what it is, Job. The inner voice is the voice of truth." And I
read aloud the verses in which Paracelsus, that eager quest after truth,
speaks his mind to his friend Festus:

Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception--which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it and makes all error: and to KNOW
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light,
Supposed to be without.

Browning was, perhaps, somewhat beyond the comprehension of Job Hesketh,
but he liked to hear me reading poetry aloud.

"Whativer it is," he said, "Abe Verity knows all about it. He were allus
a better scholar nor me, were Abe, sin first we went to schooil
together; but I reckon I'll know all about it, too, when I've slipped t'
leash an' started work at Heaven Steel Works."

It was evident that a great change had come over Job's mind, and that
the wonderful vision of a future life that had been granted to him
during that second immersion beneath the waves of the North Sea had
wholly taken away from him his old fear of death. But I wanted to hear
the conclusion of the story, and pressed him to continue.

"Nay," he s