Listen, and I will tell you how. I had left a lumber camp with
a company of frontiersmen one Sunday morning, to go to a new clearing
which 'we were making in the wilderness, when I suddenly discovered that
I had forgotten my axe. Swearing at my misfortune, I returned to get it.
As I approached the cabin which I had left a few minutes before, I heard
a human voice. I paused in surprise, crept quietly to the door and
listened. Some one was talking in almost the very language in which I
have spoken to you. I was frightened and fled! Escaping into the depths
of the forest, I lay down at the root of a great tree, and for the
first time in my life I made a silence in my soul and listened to the
voice of God. I know not how long I lay there; but at last when I
recovered my consciousness I returned to the cabin. It was silent and
empty; but on the floor I found this book."

"Good God!" exclaimed a voice.

So rapt had been the attention of the hearers that at this unexpected
interruption the women screamed and the men made a wide path for the
figure that burst through them and rushed toward the platform.

The speaker paused and fixed his eye upon the man who pressed eagerly
toward him.

"Tell me whether a red line is drawn down the edge of that chapter, and
a hand is pointing toward the fifth and sixth verses!" he cried.

"It is," replied the lumberman.

"Then let me take it!" exclaimed David, reaching out his trembling
hands.

"What for?"

"Because it is mine! I am the man who proclaimed the holy faith, and,
God forgive me, abandoned it even as you received it!"

The astonished lumberman handed him the Bible, and he covered it with
kisses and tears. In the meantime, the crowd, excited by the spectacular
elements of the drama, surged round the actors, and the preacher,
reaching down, took David by the arm and raised him to the platform.

"Be quiet, my friends," he said with a gesture of command, "and when
this prodigal has regained his composure we will ask him to tell us his
story."

Of what was transpiring around him, David seemed to be entirely
unconscious and at last the fickle crowd became impatient.

"What's de matter wid you?" said a sarcastic voice.

"Speak out! Don't snuffle," exclaimed another.

"Tip us your tale," cried a fourth.

"Go on. Go on. We're waiting," called many more.

These impatient cries at last aroused David from his waking dream, he
drew his hand over his eyes, and began his story.