But presently he
comes.

"Is it right there should be a chosen people? To Him, who is father to
all, should not all be dear?"

How can we answer him? We were feeling so good till he came. We put our
head down on the Bible and blister it with tears. Then we fold our hands
over our head and pray, till our teeth grind together. Oh, that from
that spirit-world, so real and yet so silent, that surrounds us, one
word would come to guide us! We are left alone with this devil; and God
does not whisper to us. Suddenly we seize the Bible, turning it round
and round, and say hurriedly:

"It will be God's voice speaking to us; His voice as though we heard
it."

We yearn for a token from the inexorably Silent One.

We turn the book, put our finger down on a page, and bend to read by the
moonlight. It is God's answer. We tremble.

"Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas,
and took Titus with me also."

For an instant our imagination seizes it; we are twisting, twirling,
trying to make an allegory. The fourteen years are fourteen months; we
are Paul and the devil is Barnabas, Titus is-- Then a sudden loathing
comes to us: we are liars and hypocrites, we are trying to deceive
ourselves. What is Paul to us--and Jerusalem? We are Barnabas and Titus?
We know not the men. Before we know we seize the book, swing it round
our head, and fling it with all our might to the further end of the
room. We put down our head again and weep.

Youth and ignorance; is there anything else that can weep so? It is
as though the tears were drops of blood congealed beneath the eyelids;
nothing else is like those tears. After a long time we are weak with
crying, and lie silent, and by chance we knock against the wood that
stops the broken pane. It falls. Upon our hot stiff face a sweet breath
of wind blows. We raise our head, and with our swollen eyes look out at
the beautiful still world, and the sweet night-wind blows in upon us,
holy and gentle, like a loving breath from the lips of God. Over us
a deep peace comes, a calm, still joy; the tears now flow readily and
softly. Oh, the unutterable gladness! At last, at last we have found it!
"The peace with God." "The sense of sins forgiven." All doubt vanished,
God's voice in the soul, the Holy Spirit filling us! We feel Him! We
feel Him! Oh, Jesus Christ, through you, through you this joy! We press
our hands upon our breast and look upward with adoring gladness. Soft
wave