agnostic and did not wish to read such a book--could he not read some
scientific work by Tyndall or Huxley in place of it? Miss Kimball
referred his letter to me, and I took it to Dr. Vincent. He considered
the question, and then wrote in substance this answer:

If you were a Unitarian, you could read a volume
by James Martineau; if you were a Roman Catholic,
you could read one of many good Catholic religious
books; if you were a Jew you might take some book
upon your own religion. But you call yourself an
agnostic, that is, one who does not know God and
has no religion, and therefore, to meet the
requirements of your course it will be necessary
for you to read some candid, sane work on the
Christian religion; and such is Walker's "Plan of
Salvation."

The letter closed with a friendly request that he would read the book
without a strong prejudice against it, and some hearty sympathetic
sentences which Dr. Vincent knew how to write. For a year we heard
nothing of the man; we concluded that he had been offended at the
requirement and had left the Circle. We were surprised when at last
another letter came from him stating that he had read the book, at first
unwillingly, but later with deep interest; also that association with
believers in the Circle had shown them, not as he had supposed, narrow
and bigoted, but broad in their views. He had seen in them a mystic
something which he desired; he had sought and found it. "To-day," he
wrote, "I have united with the Presbyterian Church, and this evening I
led the Christian Endeavor meeting."

Dr. Hale told of a man who had been formerly a pupil and youth in his
church, who was suffering from nervous prostration, and lay down in a
shack in an out-of-the-way place in Florida, almost ready to die. His
eyes were drawn to the orange-colored cover of a magazine which he had
never seen before, _The Chautauquan_. He opened it at random and began
to read. "Are you a child of God? Are you a partaker of the divine
nature? If you are, work with God! Don't give up working with God!" It
seemed to him like a voice from heaven. On that moment he said to
himself, "I will not die, but live!" He began to read the magazine and
followed it by reading the books to which the magazine made reference.
They opened before him a new field of thought and made of him a new man.
He told this st