, miles and
miles of unbroken forest. David might travel through many lands and see
no fairer landscape, but it did not please him to-night. There was no
sunshine on it to-night, and he said to himself that it always needed
sunshine. The grey clouds had gathered again, and lay in piled-up
masses veiling the west, and the November wind came sweeping over the
hills cold and keen. Mr Inglis shivered, and wrapped his coat closely
about him, and David touched Don impatiently. The drive had been rather
a failure, he thought, and they might as well be getting home. But he
had time for a good many troubled thoughts before they reached the
bridge over the Gourlay.

"To enrol one's name." He had not done that, and that was the very
first step towards becoming a soldier. "He that is not for me is
against me." He did not like that at all. He would have liked to
explain that so as to make it mean something else. He would have liked
to make himself believe that there was some middle ground. "He that is
not against me is for me." In one place it said that, and he liked it
much better. He tried to persuade himself that he was not against
Christ. No, certainly he was not against Him. But was he for Him in
the sense his father meant--in the sense that his father was for Him,
and his mother, and a good many others that came into his mind? Had he
deliberately enrolled his name as one of the great army whom Christ
would lead to victory?

But then how could he do this? He could not do it, he said to himself.
It was God's work to convert the soul, and had not his father said
within the hour, "It is God that giveth the victory?" Had he not said
that salvation was all of grace from beginning to end--that it was a
gift--"God's gift." What more could be said?

But David knew in his heart that a great deal more could be said. He
knew great as this gift was--full and free as it was, he had never asked
for it--never really desired it. He desired to be saved from the
consequences of sin, as who does not? but he did not long to be saved
from sin itself and its power in the heart, as they must be whom God
saves. He did not feel that he needed this. If he was not "for Christ"
in the sense his father and mother were for Him, still the thought came
back--surely he was _not_ against Him; even though it might not be
pleasant for him to think of giving up all for Christ--to "take up his
cross and follow Him," still he was not "agai