d have loved Him; I
would have followed as those women followed Him; I would have kissed
the hem of His garment."

A laugh checked the further flow of my talk; but I lay down again,
and then my thoughts wandered off to the mountains of Judea, and I
saw a Divine Man walking over the hills and valleys, and women
following Him. In those days I knew two passages in the Bible, and
that was all that I knew of it, for I never read it. But I learned
at Sunday school, Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and the first five
verses of the first chapter of John. And I remember how confused I
always was over the WORD, for some told me it meant "_Logos_."

What was "_Logos_?" I could never fathom it. Now I know what
"_Logos_" means. And yet the mystery is not fathomed. Well, let that
go. I could never understand the Bible. However, in those days it
was something holy and sacred to me; because the Bible that I owned
belonged to my dear father, and I often kissed it, and loved the
Book dearly, but I could not read it by myself. But I did read
occasionally in the Bible, to an old woman; she lived on the way to
the village school, in a dilapidated, deserted country store; she
occupied the little back room, in which was a fire-place, and I was
permitted to take a flask of milk to her every day, as I passed to
school; and with what a glad heart I always hurried off in the
morning, that I might gather broken brush-wood and dried sticks, for
her to kindle her fire with. Charitable people sent her wood, but it
was wet and hard to kindle, and the poor old woman, with her bent
back, would go out and painfully gather the dried sticks that lay
around her desolate home; but when I came, she would take my book
and dinner-basket into her house, and leave me the delight of
gathering the sticks. Ah! I was happy then--when I knelt on the rude
hearth and blew with my mouth instead of a bellows, the smoking,
smouldering wood into a blaze, and heard the loving words that the
good old woman lavished upon me. She loved me--but not as much as I
loved her. She was my peculiar treasure--something for me to live
for, and think of. I always left my dinner with her, and at noon
returned to eat it with her; though I would feel almost ashamed to
spread out the cold meat and bread before her, she looked so much
like a lady.

But she always asked a blessing; that was what I never did, and it
gave me an awe-stricken feeling, and my meal would have something of
a solemn