eternal warfare against the forces of sin, is
it not?" asked the Reverend Arthur Bliss in surprise.

"Let me suggest," said Doctor June, "that all good life is an eternal
surrender to the forces of good. There's a difference."

The visitor from the city smiled very reverently.

"I see, sir," he said, "that you are one of those wonderful
non-combatants. You are by nature sanctified--and that I can well
believe."

"I am by nature a miserable old sinner," rejoined the doctor, warmly.
"Often--often I would enjoy a fine round Elizabethan oath--note how that
single adjective condones my poor taste. But I hold that good is
inflowing and that it possesses whom it may possess. If a man is too
busy fighting, it may pass him by."

"But surely, sir," said the young clergyman, "you agree with me that a
man wins his way into the kingdom of light by both a staff and a sword?"

"You will perhaps forgive me for agreeing with nothing of the sort,"
said the doctor, mildly; "I hold that a man takes his way to the light
by grasping whatever the Lord puts in his hand--a hammer, a rope, a
pen--and grasping it hard."

"But the ungifted--what of the ungifted?" cried the Reverend Arthur
Bliss.

"In this sense, there are none," said Doctor June, briefly.

"Busy, busy, busy all the day. Busy, busy, busy ..." sounded suddenly
from the street in Ellen's thin soprano. Doctor June looked down at her,
his expression scarcely changing, because it was always serenely soft.
But the young clergyman saw with amazement the strange little figure
with her unbound hair and her arms high and swaying, and as she took
some steps of her dance before the gate, he questioned his host with
uplifted brows.

"A little mad," the doctor said, nodding, "like us all. She sings in the
streets of a glad morning, and dances now and then. We take ours out in
tangential opinions. It is nearly the same thing."

The young clergyman's face lighted responsively at this, and then he
deferentially clinched his argument.

"There is a case in point," said he. "That poor creature there--what has
the Lord put in her hand?"

Doctor June looked thoughtful.

"Nothing," he declared, "for any fight. But I'm not sure that she isn't
made to be a leaven. The kingdom of God works like a leaven, you know,
my dear young friend. Not like a dum-dum bullet."

"But--that poor creature. A leaven?" doubted the Reverend Arthur Bliss.

"I shouldn't wonder," said Doctor June, "I shouldn'