moments passed and Gilcrest
breathed on in quiet slumber.

"If he does," responded Bledsoe, "that water will have saved him."

Gilcrest slept on. Dawn gave place to full day, morning glided into
afternoon. Late in the evening he awoke of his own accord, weak as a
new-born babe, but with the fever gone and the light of reason once
more in his sunken eyes.

During the long weeks of convalescence that followed, while his body
was slowly regaining vigor, his heart, too, was gradually expanding
into a new spiritual life. He had ample time for reflection as he sat
propped with pillows in the cushioned chair in his quiet room; and in
those long hours of solitude and feeble helplessness, he first began to
feel the need of a religion more healing and cheering than that which
showed God only as an avenger, stern, partial and dictatorial.
Gradually, and as naturally as a plant turns to the sun, his mind
turned to that all-loving Father who, being "touched with a feeling for
our infirmities," ever tempers his righteous judgments with tenderest
mercy, and is ever yearning to deliver all from the penalty of sin.

CHAPTER XXXV.

CONCLUSION

Upon the third Sunday in November, while the congregation in Cane Ridge
meeting-house was singing the opening hymn, Hiram Gilcrest entered,
and, walking slowly down the aisle, seated himself upon the steps of
the pulpit platform. All eyes were turned upon him, and for a moment
there was a perceptible pause and break in the singing. Then Mason
Rogers lined out the fifth stanza, and the congregation sang with
redoubled zest.

"Let us pray," said Barton Stone, coming forward with uplifted hands at
the conclusion of the hymn; but Gilcrest arose, and, arresting him,
stood facing the assembly. "Brethren," he said, "before we pray, allow
me a few words. I have been a professor of religion for over forty
years, and for twenty years of this time I was identified with this
church. My walk was orderly, my conversation seemly. I gave tithes of
all that I possessed, I was instant in season and out of season, and
ever jealous for the well-being of the church. In things outward and, I
thought, in things spiritual, I was a Christian; and though I was as
self-righteous as any Pharisee, I was not a hypocrite, for I was
self-deceived. In all these years I was as Simon the sorcerer, still
'in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity,' having neither
part nor lot in true Christianity. But, bret