eady too much. But an appeal
from Flossy to keep her company, as the others had gone, had the effect
of changing her mind.

Armed each with a camp-chair, they made their way to the stand, after
the great congregation were seated. A fortunate thought those
camp-chairs had been; there was not a vacant seat anywhere.

Marion placed her chair out of sight both of stand and speaker, but
within hearing, and gave herself up to her own troubled thoughts, until
the opening exercises were concluded and the preacher announced his
text: "The place that is called Calvary."

She roused a little and tried to determine whose voice it was, it had a
familiar sound, but she could not be sure, and she tried to go back to
the useless questionings of her own heart; but she could not. She could
never be deaf to eloquence; whoever the speaker was, there was that in
his very opening sentences which roused and held her. Whatever he had to
say, whether or not it was anything that had to do with her, she _must_
listen. Still the wonderment existed as to which voice it was.

But when he reached the sentences: "Jump the ages! Come down here to
Chautauqua Lake to-day, O Son of God! O Son of Man! O Son of Mary! When
the prophet of old said, 'He shall see of the travail of his soul and
shall be satisfied,' did he look along the centuries and see the
gathered thousands here, who have just sung, 'Tell me the old, old
story'? What story? Why, the story of the place that is called
Calvary!"--Marion leaned forward and addressed the person next to her.

"Isn't that Dr. Deems?" she said.

"Yes indeed!" was the answer, spoken with enthusiasm.

And Marion drew back, and listened. That sermon! Marion tried to report
it, but it was like trying to report the roll of the waves on the
Atlantic; she could only listen with beating heart and flushing cheek.
Presently she listened with a new interest, for the divisions of the
subject were: "God's thought of sin," and "God's thought of mercy."
Though the morning was warm, she shivered and drew her wrap closer
about her. "God's thought of sin! She was in a mood to comprehend in a
measure what a fearful thought it might be.

"Some men," said the speaker, "make light of sin." Yes, she had done it
herself. "Where shall we learn what God thinks of it? On Sinai? No. God
spoke there in thunder and lightning, till the very _hills_ shook and
trembled.

"And what were they doing down below? Dancing around a golden calf!