back closing the door softly. Here was a predicament
indeed! The approaching swish of silken skirts sounded along the hall,
and she ran noiselessly up the carpeted stairway looking for some place
of concealment. The door leading into the auditorium confronted her,
and shaking with silent laughter she pushed it open and slipped
noiselessly within. A soft hushed movement like one breathing in sleep
filled the great space. She paused, startled--the church was crowded.

Away up in the dim pulpit at the other end a man was speaking.
Elizabeth dropped breathlessly and embarrassed into the pew nearest the
door. She had no idea what this gathering was for or who the speaker
was. Mrs. Jarvis attended the regular Sunday morning services in St.
Stephen's, whenever a headache did not prevent, and Elizabeth
accompanied her. But beyond this the girl had not the slightest
connection with any of the activities of this religious body of which
she was a member. Otherwise she might have known that this was a great
gathering of students, many of whom were young volunteers for the army
of the King that was fighting sin far away in the stronghold of
heathenism. She would have heard, too, that the man up there in the
pulpit, with every eye set unwaveringly upon him, was one who had
stirred the very pulses of her native land by his call to the laymen of
the church to a wider vision of their duty to the world. But poor
Elizabeth knew very little more about this great movement than if she
had been one of the heathen in whose behalf it was being made.

And perhaps because she had been so long shut away from the great
things of life, for which her heart vainly cried, her very soul went
out to the words of the speaker. He was nearing the end of his
address, and was making his appeal to those young people to invest
their lives in this great work for God and humanity.

Looking back upon that scene afterwards, it almost seemed miraculous to
Elizabeth, that the first words of his message she heard were from that
prophetic poem that had always moved her to tears in her childhood days
when her father read them at family worship.

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, the
desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom
abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing." This was the
promise to those who responded to their Master's call. The
wildernesses of the earth, the sad and solitary places, we