the inclemencies of the Infinitudes. But I
ceased to worry once he began to really pray and scourge himself, and I
did not interrupt the chastening. Usually, when he insisted upon
fasting all day Friday, I provided little intelligent temptations to
food at the earliest possible moment. But this time I let him starve
to his heart's content. I reckon I am a worldly-minded woman and
always shall be, but I know another, higher minded man when I see one,
and I have always been careful not to drag William down. Now I was
equally determined that Horace Pendleton should not.

Once, during the dreadful time, he came out of his study and looked at
me vaguely, pleadingly, as if he wanted help.

"Don't look at me that way, William," I cried, "I can't do anything but
kiss you. I never did know where your God was, but you knew, and
you'll just have to go back the way you came to Him. All I know for
certain is that there is a God, your kind, or you could never have
lived the way you have lived, nor accomplished the things you have
accomplished. You couldn't have; you haven't sense enough. And for
this reason you'd better not try to think your way back. If God is
God, He is far beyond our little thinking. You had better feel your
way to him. It is what you call Faith in your sermons!"

Something like this is what I said to him standing before him with my
head on his breast, wiping the tears from my eyes. Really a
spiritually sick preacher is about the most depressing thing a woman
can have in the house. And when I looked at William, pale,
hollow-eyed, with his mouth puckered into a penitential angle I longed
to lay Horace Pendleton across my knees and give him what he deserved
for disturbing a better man's peace.

About the middle of Saturday afternoon, however, I knew that his clouds
were breaking. I heard him in his study singing:

"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word."

[Illustration: I Heard Him in His Study Singing.]

Later on, at bed-time, he chose a cheerful psalm to read and I heard
the happy rustling of his wings in the prayer he made.

The next evening had been chosen for the initial service of the
protracted meeting and I remember his text:

"I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,
and do count them but refuse that I may win Christ and be found