relatives. He had, he told
them, seldom been so deeply impressed by a sermon as by Dr. Watson's. He
particularly mentioned the story of the Riviera crucifix. 'Yes,' he
said, earnestly, 'the Cross remains, and, in the straits of the soul,
makes its ancient appeal.' An hour later his heart had ceased to beat.

'_God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross!_' cried Francis.

'_The Cross remains, and, in the straits of the soul, makes its ancient
appeal!_' exclaims Matthew Arnold.

For the Cross, as Francis discovered that great day, is the true source
of all abiding happiness; the Cross is the stairway that Jacob saw,
leading up from earth to heaven; the Cross has a charm for men of every
clime and every time; it is the boast of the redeemed; the rock of ages;
the hope of this world and the glory of the world to come.

XXII

EVERYBODY'S TEXT

I

Centuries seemed like seconds that day: they dwindled down to nothing.
It was a beautiful September morning: I was only a little boy: and, as a
great treat, my father and mother had taken me to London to witness the
erection of Cleopatra's Needle. The happenings of that eventful day live
in my memory as vividly as though they had occurred but yesterday. I
seem even now to be watching the great granite column, smothered with
its maze of hieroglyphics, as it slowly ascends from the horizontal to
the perpendicular, like a giant waking and standing erect after his
long, long sleep. All the way up in the train we had been talking about
the wonderful thing I was so soon to see. My father had told me that it
once stood in front of the great temple at Heliopolis; that the Pharaohs
drove past it repeatedly on their way to and from the palace; and that,
very possibly, Moses, as a boy of my own age, sat on the steps at its
base learning the lessons that his tutor had prescribed. It seemed to
bring Moses and me very near together. To think that he, too, had stood
beside this self-same obelisk and had puzzled over the weird
inscriptions that looked so bewildering to me! And now Heliopolis, the
City of the Sun, has vanished! A single column tells the traveler where
it stood! London is the world's metropolis to-day. And the monument,
that stood among the splendors of the _old_ world, is being re-erected
amidst the glories of the _new_!

Will a time ever come, I wondered, when London will be as Heliopolis is?
Will the Needle, in some future age, be erected in some new capital