sks
one of the guests.

The words jar. In answer to my look of inquiry, he proceeds:

"There was a dispute about your holding a religious service at the
picnic grounds. They made it a political matter--one party threatened
to leave if you did preach, the other threatened to leave if you did not
preach. There was quite an excitement about it until it was found that
you were gone, and then everybody quieted down."

There is a silence. I break it by telling them how I spent the day, and
then they are very quiet.

The next Sabbath every soul at the place united in a request for a
religious service, the list headed by a high-spirited and brilliant
Pennsylvania lady who had led the opposing forces the previous Sunday.

Winter-Blossomed.

I think I saw him the first Sunday I preached in San Jose, in 1856. He
was a notable-looking man. I felt attracted toward him by that
indefinable sympathy that draws together two souls born to be friends. I
believe in friendship at first sight. Who that ever had a real friend
does not? Love at first sight is a different thing--it may be divine
and eternal, or it may be a whim or a passing fancy. Passion blurs and
blinds in the region of sexual love: friendship is revealed in its own
white light.

I was introduced after the service to the stranger who had attracted my
attention, and who had given the youthful preacher such a kind and
courteous hearing.

"This is Major McCoy."

He was a full head higher than anybody else as he stood in the aisle. He
bowed with courtly grace as he took my hand, and his face lighted with a
smile that had in it something more than a conventional civility. I felt
that there was a soul beneath that dignified and courtly exterior. His
head displayed great elevation of the cranium, and unusual breadth of
forehead. It was what is called an intellectual head; and the lines
around the eyes showed the traces of thought, and, as it seemed to me, a
tinge of that sadness that nearly always lends its charm to the best
faces.

"I have met a man that I know I shall like," was my gratified
exclamation to the mistress of the parsonage, as I entered.

And so it turned out. He became one of the select circle to whom I
applied the word friend in the sacredest sense. This inner circle can
never be large. If you unduly enlarge it you dilute the quality of this
wine of life. We are limited. There is only One Heart large enough to
hold all humanity in its inmost depth