wooden gods
with limbs lopped off; clay gods, mere lumps of mud; mutilated and
neglected, worn-out old gods. Oh, the worship once offered to those
broken, battered things! No one worships them now! For full five minutes
I had sat and looked at them--

"Gods bereaved, gods belated,
With your purples rent asunder!
Gods discrowned and desecrated,
Disinherited of thunder!"

There were withered wreaths lying at the feet of some of the idols near;
there were fresh wreaths round the necks of others. There were no
wreaths in this corner of dead gods. I looked, and looked, and looked
again. Oh, there was prophecy in it!

And as I came out among the living people, the sight of that graveyard
of dead gods was ever with me, and the triumph-song God's prophetess
sang, sang itself through and through me--Pan is dead! _Quite dead!_

"'Twas the hour when One in Sion
Hung for love's sake on a cross;
When His brow was chill with dying,
And His soul was faint with loss;
When His priestly blood dropped downward,
And His kingly eyes looked throneward--
Then, Pan was dead.

"By the love He stood alone in,
His sole Godhead rose complete,
And the false gods fell down moaning,
Each from off his golden seat;
All the false gods with a cry
Rendered up their deity--
Pan, Pan was dead."

CHAPTER XXIV

"Married to the God"

"One thing one notices very much as a
'freshman'--that is, the unconscious influence
which Christianity has over a nation. Go to the
most depraved wretch you can find in England, and
he has probably got a conscience, if only one can
get at it. _But here the result of heathenism
seems to be to destroy men's consciences. They
never feel sin as such._"
_Rev. E. S. Carr, India._

"I have heard people say they enjoyed hearing
about missions. I often wonder if they would enjoy
watching a shipwreck."
_Mrs. Robert Stewart, China._

LEAVE this chapter if you want "something interesting to read"; hold
your finger in the flame of a candle if you want to know what it is like
to write it. If you do this, then you will know someth