him, was often a spellbound listener at these
little gatherings.

The result was that in a short time a delegation, headed by the
Alcalde himself, waited upon Jose and begged him to lecture to the
people of Simiti in the church building at least two or three evenings
a week upon places and people he had seen in the great world of which
they knew nothing. Jose's eyes were moist as he looked at the great,
brawny men, stout of heart, but simple as children. He grieved to give
up his evenings, for he had formed the habit of late of devoting them
to the study of his Bible, and to meditation on those ideas which had
so recently come to him. But the appeal from these innocent, untutored
people again quenched the thought of self, and he bade them be assured
that their request was granted.

The new ideas which had found entrance into Jose's liberated mentality
in the past few days had formed a basis on which he was not afraid to
stand while teaching Carmen; and his entire instruction was
thenceforth colored by them. He knew not why, in all the preceding
years, such ideas had not come to him before. But he was to learn,
some day, that his previous tenacious clinging to evil as a reality,
together with his material beliefs and his worldly intellectuality,
had stood as barriers at the portals of his thought, and kept the
truth from entering. His mind had been already full--but its contents
were unbelief, fear, the conviction of evil as real and operative, and
the failure to know God as immanent, omnipotent and perfect mind, to
whom evil is forever unknown and unreal. Pride, egoism, and his morbid
sense of honesty had added their portion to the already impassable
obstruction at the gateway of his thought. And so the error had been
kept within, the good without. The "power of the Lord" had not been
absent; but it had remained unapplied. Thus he had wandered through
the desolate wilderness; but yet sustained and kept alive, that he
should not go down to the pit.

Jose's days were now so crowded that he was forced to borrow heavily
from the night. The Alcalde continued his unctuous flattery, and the
priest, in turn, cultivated him assiduously. To that official's query
as to the restitution of the confessional in the church, the priest
replied that he could spare time to hear only such confessions from
his flock as might be necessary to elicit from him the advice or
assistance requisite for their needs. He was there to help them sol