ange
pair directly across the aisle from him in the pew with Esther.

Glancing over to note the effect upon her, Mr. Dale saw that she took
the little girl up into her lap, bestowing upon her fond caresses. He
looked long enough for Rosa's large brown eyes to meet his own, then
with a great heart pang turned away. When had he ever seen so perfect a
likeness to his own Margaret, his only and idolized darling, who had
left his home the year before? Something seemed to be clutching at his
heart most relentlessly, while a lump was filling his throat. Nervously
and hastily lest his wife might see, he wiped from his brow the
gathering perspiration. Persistently he endeavored to settle down for
the nap, but with eyes either closed or open, all he could see was the
child across the aisle. One moment he wished to fold her within his arms
so strangely empty for twelve long months, and the next mentally
upbraided her for so cruelly tearing open the one deep wound of his
life.

Presently he became aware that the voluntary had ceased, and that a
restlessness was sweeping over the great audience. Arousing himself
somewhat from his harrowing reveries, he looked at his watch and found
that it was ten minutes past the time for the service to begin, and Dr.
Fairfax had not yet entered the pulpit.

While the people were wondering what the cause of the delay might be, he
appeared.

An unusual note of tenderness in the invocation prepared the auditors in
some degree for what followed.

"Brethren," he said, "it is recorded in Holy Writ that Jesus took a
child and set it in the midst of them. Just as truly has He set in our
midst today a child, and for this reason the whole order of service
shall be changed. God helping me, I shall hide behind the cross, that
the people may see Jesus only, and I shall present the way of salvation
so simply that wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

"We are living in a rationalistic age, when by many the God of miracles
is denied; when the incarnation of the Son of God is considered a fable,
having its counterpart in nearly all religions; when a belief in a
literal hell and a literal heaven is becoming obsolete; when the
atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, making it possible to escape the one
and gain the other, is held as a relic of superstition; when the verbal
inspiration of the Bible is ridiculed; and when character-building is
rapidly superseding the belief in the necessity of the ne