l, for the victory. "A
million dollars!" shouted the evil ones, "do not throw them away." "A
human soul!" wailed the others, "do not let it fall into evil." His
sensitive, excitable mind trembled before the crisis. His own soul
shuddered and sickened, for he seemed to see the hosts of greed of gold,
and they were stronger than the hosts of light. And Stephen himself now
was badly equipped for the conflict. He felt and recognised with dismay
he had not the strength and the fervour now that had brought him
through former battles. He was as a warrior that has fallen asleep and
awakened to find his arms grown rusty while he has been sleeping.

Gradually for the last six months the lust for gold had been eating into
his spirituality and destroying it. You cannot serve God and mammon: had
he not entered into the services of mammon, and been held there by the
rich rewards?

He thought of the rich pans he had been getting out. There was no claim
like his in the camp. There was no man more envied nor considered more
lucky than he. Yes, mammon had paid him well in the six months he had
served it, showered upon him more than God had done in six-and-twenty
years; and here was God's gift, a human soul, a sweet human life, he
could save and make his own--and Stephen groaned again, for he felt that
the gold was dearer to him. How could he have so changed, he wondered.
A year ago he would have laughed at the idea of a million dollars being
a bribe for him to sin. He looked into his heart now and found there was
nothing there but a passion for gold, gold! It was a yellow rust that
had eaten into his Christian's sword.

Then his thoughts strayed to the girl he had just left, and her bright
fresh face seemed to sway before him as he walked. His excited fancy
painted it upon the snow banks at his side. She was so young, she seemed
so fresh and lovely, it was impossible to think of her as tainted
already with vice and sin. It was only if she were kept in this
snow-bound prison, this mournful land of darkness and suffering, where,
as she said, she had no place nor aim, that she would fall as those
bright meteors were falling now far in the distant darkness. He could be
her deliverer, her saviour, if--if he could.

In the icy cold of that arctic night, great drops of sweat broke out
hotly on Stephen's forehead as his brain was wrenched to and fro in the
struggle. He tried to bribe even himself, tried to let his thoughts
dwell on his passi