have done
a very impertinent thing to-day, and I shall mark you for it!"

"I meant no harm. I meant only the truth and to hear the things of God,"
repeated Joshua sadly, as he took his seat among his companions, who
tittered.

And so Joshua was not well looked on by the clergyman, who was his
enemy, as one may say, ever after.

"Mother," said Joshua, "I mean, when I grow up, to live as our Lord and
Saviour lived when He was on the earth."

"He is our example, lad," said his mother. "But I doubt lest you fall by
over-boldness."

_II.--Faith That Moveth Mountains_

Joshua did not leave home early. He wrought at his father's bench, and
was content to bide with his people. But his spirit was not dead if his
life was uneventful. He gathered about him a few youths of his own age,
and held with them prayer-meetings and Bible readings, either at home in
his father's house, or in the fields when the throng was too great for
the cottage.

No one ever knew Joshua tell the shadow of a lie, or go back from his
word, or play at pretence. And he had such an odd way of coming right
home to us. He seemed to have felt all that we felt, and to have thought
all our thoughts.

The youths that Joshua got together as his friends were as
well-conditioned a set of lads as you would wish to see--sober,
industrious, chaste. Their aim was to be thorough and like Christ.
Joshua's great hope was to bring back the world to the simplicity and
broad humanity of Christ's acted life, and he could not understand how
it had been let drop.

He was but a young man at this time, remember--enthusiastic, with little
or no scientific knowledge, and putting the direct interposition of God
above the natural law. Wherefore, he accepted the text about faith
removing mountains as literally true. And one evening he went down into
the Rocky Valley, earnest to try conclusions with God's promise, and
sure of proving it true.

He prayed to God to grant us this manifestation--to redeem His promise.
Not a shadow of doubt chilled or slacked him. As he stood there in the
softening twilight, with his arms raised above his head and his face
turned up to the sky, his countenance glowed as Moses' of old. He seemed
inspired, transported beyond himself, beyond humanity.

He commanded the stone to move in God's name, and because Christ had
promised. But the rock stood still, and a stonechat went and perched on
it.

Another time he took up a viper in his hand, q