is thoughts go
where they would, and they went up into the abyss over his head.

'Lord, come to me,' he cried in his heart, 'for I cannot go to thee.
If I were to go up and up through that awful space for ages and ages,
I should never find thee. Yet there thou art. The tenderness of thy
infinitude looks upon me from those heavens. Thou art in them and in me.
Because thou thinkest, I think. I am thine--all thine. I abandon
myself to thee. Fill me with thyself. When I am full of thee, my griefs
themselves will grow golden in thy sunlight. Thou holdest them and
their cause, and wilt find some nobler atonement between them than vile
forgetfulness and the death of love. Lord, let me help those that are
wretched because they do not know thee. Let me tell them that thou, the
Life, must needs suffer for and with them, that they may be partakers
of thy ineffable peace. My life is hid in thine: take me in thy hand as
Gideon bore the pitcher to the battle. Let me be broken if need be, that
thy light may shine upon the lies which men tell them in thy name, and
which eat away their hearts.'

Having persuaded Shargar to remain with Mrs. Falconer for a few days,
and thus remove the feeling of offence she still cherished because of
his 'munelicht flittin',' he returned to Dr. Anderson, who now unfolded
his plans for him. These were, that he should attend the medical classes
common to the two universities, and at the same time accompany him in
his visits to the poor. He did not at all mean, he said, to determine
Robert's life as that of a medical man, but from what he had learned
of his feelings, he was confident that a knowledge of medicine would be
invaluable to him. I think the good doctor must have foreseen the kind
of life which Falconer would at length choose to lead, and with true
and admirable wisdom, sought to prepare him for it. However this may be,
Robert entertained the proposal gladly, went into the scheme with his
whole heart, and began to widen that knowledge of and sympathy with the
poor which were the foundation of all his influence over them.

For a time, therefore, he gave a diligent and careful attendance upon
lectures, read sufficiently, took his rounds with Dr. Anderson, and
performed such duties as he delegated to his greater strength. Had the
healing art been far less of an enjoyment to him than it was, he could
yet hardly have failed of great progress therein; but seeing that it
accorded with his best feelings