brought Esther before his audience, bathed and
perfumed for the royal presence of Ahasuerus. He showed them the sweet
young Ruth, lying down in her innocence at the feet of the lord of the
manor. He dwelt with special luxury on the charms which seduced the
royal psalmist,--the soldier's wife for whom he broke the commands of the
decalogue, and the maiden for whose attentions, in his cooler years, he
violated the dictates of prudence and propriety. All this time Byles
Gridley had his stern eyes on him. And while he kindled into passionate
eloquence on these inspiring themes, poor Bathsheba, whom her mother had
sent to church that she might get a little respite from her home duties,
felt her blood growing cold in her veins, as the pallid image of the
invalid wife, lying on her bed of suffering, rose in the midst of the
glowing pictures which borrowed such warmth from her husband's
imagination.

The sermon, with its hinted application to the event of the past week,
was over at last. The shoulders of the nervous women were twitching with
sobs. The old men were crying in their vacant way. But all the while the
face of Byles Gridley, firm as a rock in the midst of this lachrymal
inundation, was kept steadily on the preacher, who had often felt the
look that came through the two round glasses searching into the very
marrow of his bones.

As the sermon was finished, the sexton marched up through the broad aisle
and handed the note over the door of the pulpit to the clergyman, who was
wiping his face after the exertion of delivering his discourse. Mr.
Stoker looked at it, started, changed color,--his vision of "The Dangers
of Beauty, a Sermon printed by Request," had vanished,--and passed the
note to Father Pemberton, who sat by him in the pulpit. With much pains
he deciphered its contents, for his eyes were dim with years, and, having
read it, bowed his head upon his hands in silent thanksgiving. Then he
rose in the beauty of his tranquil and noble old age, so touched with the
message he had to proclaim to his people, that the three deep furrows on
his forehead, which some said he owed to the three dogmas of original
sin, predestination, and endless torment, seemed smoothed for the moment,
and his face was as that of an angel while he spoke.

"Sisters and Brethren,--Rejoice with us, for we have found our lamb which
had strayed from the fold. This our daughter was dead and is alive
again; she was lost and is found. M