id to himself, "some other fellow has had a time of it,
too, I guess, and put it in the Bible. I'm glad I've found out about it
just as I did."

Tode didn't mean to be irreverent. You must continually bear in mind the
fact that he didn't know the meaning of the word; that he knew nothing
about the Bible, nor dreamed that the words which so delighted him were
those of inspiration, sounding down through the ages for the peace and
comfort of such as he.

Presently Mr. Birge announced his text, reading it from that same great
book, and Tode's heart fluttered with delighted expectation as he heard
the words, "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." The _very_ name! and of all
news this, that he passes by. Oh, Tode _wanted_ so to see him, to hear
about him. He sat erect, and his dark cheek flushed with excitement as
he listened eagerly to every word. And the Spirit of the Master had
surely helped to indite that sermon, for it told in its opening
sentences the simple story, entirely new to Tode.

"A little more than eighteen hundred years ago, very near a certain
city, might have been seen a large concourse of people, differently
circumstanced in life, many of them such as had been healed of the
various diseases with which they had long been afflicted. This throng
were following a person upon whose words they hung, and by whose power
many of them had been healed. As they passed by the roadside sat a blind
man begging. He, hearing the crowd, asks what it is. They answer, 'Jesus
of Nazareth passeth by.'"

Thus, through the beautiful and touching story, he dwelt on each detail,
giving it vivid coloring, bringing it almost before the very eyes of the
eager boy, who drank in every word.

The truth grew plain to his mind, that this Jesus of Nazareth once on
earth had now gone back to heaven, and yet, oh beautiful mystery, still
was here; and he heard for the first time that old, old story of the
scoffed and spit upon, and bleeding and dying Savior; heard of his
prayer even in dying for the cruel ones who took his life. So simply and
so tenderly was the story told, that when the minister exclaimed: "Oh
what a loving, sympathizing, forgiving Savior is ours!" Tode, with his
eyes blinded by tears, repeated the words in his heart, and felt "amen."

Then came the explanation of his passing by us now, daily, hourly,
calling us in a hundred ways, and then--a few sentences written, it
would seem, expressly for Tode's own need:

"Sometimes," s