t, I do
now anoint you with holy consecrated oil, and by the imposition of my
hands do ordain and set you apart for the holy calling whereunto you are
called; that you may consecrate the riches of the Gentiles to the House
of Israel, bring swift destruction upon apostate sinners, and execute
the decrees of Heaven without fear of what man can do with you. So mote
it be. Amen.'

"There, boy, if I ain't mistaken, that's the best work for Zion that I
done for some time. Now be off to your rest!"

"Good night, Bishop, and thank you for being kind to me! The Church Poet
called me the Lute of the Holy Ghost, but I feel to-night, that I must
be another Lion of the Lord. Good night!"

He went out of the firelight and stumbled through the dark to his own
wagons. But when he came to them he could not stop. Under all the
exhilaration he had been conscious of the great pain within him, drugged
for the moment, but never wholly stifled. Now the stimulus of the drink
had gone, and the pain had awakened to be his master.

He went past the wagons and out on to the prairie that stretched away, a
sea of silvery gray in the moonlight. As he walked, the whole stupendous
load of sorrow settled upon him. His breath caught and his eyes burned
with the tears that lay behind them. He walked faster to flee from it,
but it came upon him more heavily until it made a breaking load,--the
loss of his sister by worse than death, his father and mother driven out
at night and their home burned, his father killed by a mob whose aim had
lacked even the dignity of the murderer's--for they had seemingly
intended but a brutal piece of horse-play; his mother dead from
exposure due to Gentile persecutions; the girl he had loved taken from
him by Gentile persuasions. If only she had been left him so that now he
could put his head down upon her shoulder, slight as that shoulder was,
and feel the supreme soothing of a woman's touch; if only the hurts had
not all come at once! The pain sickened him. He was far out on the
prairie now, away from the sleeping encampment, and he threw himself
down to give way to his grief. Almost silently he wept, yet with sobs
that choked him and cramped him from head to foot. He called to his
mother and to his father and to the sister who had gone before them,
crying their names over and over in the night. But under all his sorrow
he felt as great a rage against the Gentile nation that had driven them
into the wilderness.

When