praise, and not so much as asking praise from men; but theirs is a
securer triumph than earth can give, and on their brows rests a rarer
crown than earthly monarchs wear. I know many of these men and women,
and I never meet them without the sense that the seamless robe of
Christ has touched me. I meet them in unlikely places; I overtake them
on the road of life, oftenest in the places where the shadows lie most
thickly; but on each brow is the white stone which is the sign of
peace, and in each voice is that deep note of harmony that belongs
alone to those who walk through tribulations which they overcome,
griefs of which they know the meaning, sorrows which they have the
skill to heal. Their very footsteps move more evenly than other men's,
as though guided by the rhythm of a music others do not hear; their
very hands have a softness only known to hands that bind up wounds and
wipe men's tears away; and in all their movements and their aspect is a
stillness and a sweet composure, as of hearts at rest. Whence are
these, and why are they arrayed in white robes? And we know the
answer, though no angel-voice may speak to us; these are they on whose
bowed heads the starlight of Gethsemane has fallen, in whose hands are
the wounds of service, in whose breasts is the heart that breaks with
love for men.

One such man I met some months ago, fresh from the forests of
Wisconsin. Through a long spring day he told me his story, or rather
let me draw it from him episode by episode, for he was much too modest
to suppose anything that he had done remarkable. After wild and
careless years of wasted youth, Christ had found him, and from the day
of his regeneration he gave himself to the redemption of his fellow
men. He became a "lumber-jack," a preacher to the rough sons of the
Wisconsin forests. He told me how he first won their respect by
sharing their toil--he, a fragile slip of a man, and they giants in
thew and muscle: how by tact and kindness he got a hearing for his
Master; how he travelled scores of miles through the winter snows to
nurse dying men, wrecked by wild excesses; how he had sat for hours
together with the heads of drunken men, on whom the terror had fallen,
resting on his knees, performing for them offices of help which no
other would attempt; how he had heard the confessions of thieves and
murderers, who had fled from justice to the refuge of the forest; how
he had stood pale, and apprehensive of violenc