raid of
nothing," said John to himself.

Then a chapter from the New Testament was read. It was the one in
Corinthians about charity, from every verse of which a sermon might be
preached, the minister said; but he only lingered a minute on the verse
which speaks of the charity "which thinketh no evil," and by the little
stir that went through the congregation, John thought that perhaps a
word on that subject might be specially needed.

Then came the sermon, and John listened intently. But he did not like
it. He told his mother, when he went home, that he had heard the folk
saying about the kirk door that they had had a grand sermon. "And they
should ken," said John with a shrug.

"The text? Oh! it was a fine text: `Christ the power of God, and the
wisdom of God unto salvation.' It was like no sermon I ever heard
before," said John, "and I am not sure that I ever wish to hear another
of the same kind."

John did not go to the manse that week, and he had no intention of going
to the kirk on Sunday, but when Sunday came he changed his mind and was
there with the rest. He sat in his corner and listened, and wondered,
and grew angry by turns.

"Is not my Word like as a fire? saith the Lord, and like a hammer that
breaketh the rock in pieces?"

That was the text and that was the way in which the Word came to John
Beaton, and he would have none of it--for a time.

To his mother, who went to the kirk with him after a while, it came in
another way. It was not new to her. It was just what she had been
hearing all her life, she said, only the minister made it clearer and
plainer than ever it had been made to her before. Or it might be that
her heart was more open to receive the Word than it used to be in former
days, when both heart and hands were full of the good things of this
life, which, she said, had contented her to the forgetting of the
Giver's greater gifts.

She had never been a woman of many words, and even to her son she rarely
spoke of these things. But as time went on she grew sweeter and gentler
day by day, he thought. He left her with less anxiety when he went
away, and he found her always when he came home peaceful and content.
For the peace of God was with her.

CHAPTER TEN.

"O! love will venture in where it daurna weel be seen;
O! love will venture in where wisdom ance has been."

Saunners Crombie had not been mistaken when he told his friend that "a
measure of prosperity" had,