country road in happy
converse. In fact, their ride was lengthened into nearly three hours.
That evening found him again at her side. The clock struck eleven. He
had started to leave a half hour before the time, and still he lingered.
Suddenly he turned his eyes upon her and said:

"Dorothy, do you know why I dashed through my Louisville trip at such
break-neck speed this week?"

"Why, you had to get back to your business, did you not?"

"Dorothy, it was you that pulled me back, and I tell you there can be no
real life for me without you, and I must have you mine forever. From the
first moment of our meeting I have been yours. God intended us for each
other."

"You speak very confidently," she said with a smile, but with her heart
filled with a strange new happiness.

"Speak, Dorothy, do we not belong to each other?"

"I do not deny it."

Never had the town witnessed a more beautiful marriage than that of
Dorothy Page and Gilbert Sterling. That was the verdict of the people
when the blissful pair smiled their adieus at the depot and moved off on
their wedding tour.

It amounted to a sensation when the rich Presbyterian elder severed his
connection with his great church and joined the Baptists. It meant a
bright era for the Baptist church. Before a year rolled around a
handsome new building had been erected on a commanding lot in the center
of the town. Without offering any opposition to his old Presbyterian
church, Sterling plunged into the work of his new charge with
whole-hearted devotion. He made a study of the Baptist denomination in
the state of Kentucky and in the South and North. One of his first acts
was to subscribe for several Baptist papers, and it was interesting to
Dorothy to note with what eagerness he read everything in the papers,
and each time his reading was punctuated with exclamations of surprise
at the world-wide activities of the Baptists as he saw them recorded in
the columns of the papers. He found himself enthusiastic about their
history and their present enterprises The efforts of the State Mission
Board greatly interested him, and he determined to get into close touch
with it. He told his wife that he intended to identify himself with all
these denominational movements and share their burdens.

The Baptists of Kentucky and of the whole country have reason to be
grateful for the day when Gilbert Sterling enlisted in their ranks. He
is as yet on the threshold of his usefulness. He is