love them--and I love you."

The priest strained her to him. His famished heart yearned for love.
Love! first of the tender graces which adorned this beautiful child.
Verily, only those imbued with it become the real teachers of men. The
beloved disciple's last instruction to his dear children was the
tender admonition to love one another. But why, oh, why are we bidden
to love the fallen, sordid outcasts of this wicked world--the
wretched, sinning pariahs--the greedy, grasping, self-centered mass of
humanity that surges about us in such woeful confusion of good and
evil? Because the wise Master did. Because he said that God was Love.
Because he taught that he who loves not, knows not God. And because,
oh, wonderful spiritual alchemy! because Love is the magical potion
which, dropping like heavenly dew upon sinful humanity, dissolves the
vice, the sorrow, the carnal passions, and transmutes the brutish
mortal into the image and likeness of the perfect God.

Far into the night, while the child slept peacefully in the bed near
him, Jose lay thinking of her and of the sharp turn which she had
given to the direction of his life. Through the warm night air the
hoarse croaking of distant frogs and the mournful note of the toucan
floated to his ears. In the street without he heard at intervals the
pattering of bare feet in the hot, thick dust, as tardy fishermen
returned from their labors. The hum of insects about his _toldo_
lulled him with its low monotone. The call of a lonely jaguar drifted
across the still lake from the brooding jungle beyond. A great peace
lay over the ancient town; and when, in the early hours of morning, as
the distorted moon hung low in the western sky, Jose awoke, the soft
breathing of the child fell upon his ears like a benediction; and deep
from his heart there welled a prayer--

"My God--_her_ God--at last I thank Thee!"

CHAPTER 5

The day following was filled to the brim with bustling activity. Jose
plunged into his new life with an enthusiasm he had never known
before. His first care was to relieve Rosendo and his good wife of the
burden of housing him. Rosendo, protesting against the intimation that
the priest could in any way inconvenience him, at last suggested that
the house adjoining his own, a small, three-room cottage, was vacant,
and might be had at a nominal rental. Some repairs were needed; the
mud had fallen from the walls in several places; but he would plaster
it up