old who had come in. If she held her breath to bear
every one of her brother's steps as he passed by, she did not look at
him; did not raise her head till his first prayer was ended; then her
rapt gaze was as unwavering.

The service which followed could not be measured by the ordinary line
and rule of pulpit eloquence and power,--could not be described by most
of the words which buzz down the aisles after a popular sermon. There
was not the "newness of hand" of a young preacher--for almost from
boyhood Mr. Linden had been about his Master's work. To him it was as
simple a thing to deliver his message to many as to one,--many, many of
those before him had known his private ministrations, and not a few had
through them first known the truth; and now to all these assembled
faces he was just what each had seen him alone; as humble, as earnest,
as affectionate, as simply speaking not his own words,--for "Who hath
made man's mouth--have not I, the Lord?" No one who heard the
ambassador that day, doubted from what court he had received his
credentials. "In trust with the gospel!" Yes, it was that; but that
with a warm love for the truth and the people that almost outran the
trust. As the traveller in the fountain shade of the desert calls to
the caravan that passes by through the sand,--as one of the twelve of
old, when Christ "blessed and brake and gave to his disciples, and the
disciples to the multitude"; so did he speak from the words--

"Eat, O friends!--drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved!"

There were some there who would never forget that day. There were many
to whom it seemed, that not the warm summer breeze that floated in was
gentler or sweeter than the feeling that filled the place. The little
lame girl, and her older and rougher father and mother, listened alike
to their dear friend with moveless eyes; and drank such a draught of
those sweet waters as it was long, long since either of them had tasted
in a church. It was a white day for all the fishing population; and
nothing would have kept them from coming in the afternoon. Miss Essie's
black eyes lost all their fire. Farmer Simlins, unknown to himself, sat
and smiled. And the one who listened most tenderly and joyfully,
listened indeed quietly to the last word, or till her face had leave to
bow itself from sight; quietly then no longer, only that such tears
come from no broken-up fountains of unrest. They came freely, as Faith
recalled and applied the