er the hills or in the forests. But he was no better off,
for all the sights that met his eyes were very similar to those we have
described. It was cruelty and death and destruction everywhere.

Nature alone and unaided does not reveal Christ the Saviour. Since the
fall, and the entrance of sin with all of its attendant miseries into
this once glorious world of ours, the study of nature, with all her
vagaries, without the light of revelation to clear up her mysteries, is
more apt to drive men from God than to draw them to him.

So Oowikapun found out, especially one night, after tossing about on his
bed of balsam boughs in his little tent. While lying there, utterly
miserable and dissatisfied with himself, he was startled by hearing, far
away, the dull, sullen roar of thunder, telling of an approaching storm.
Such was the mode in which he was that this sound was welcomed, and he
sprang up rejoicing, for there had suddenly come into his mind the
thought that perhaps now he would hear something in nature's voice from
which he could draw comfort and happiness.

With this hope in his heart he went out of his tent and seated himself
on a rock near at hand. One by one the stars disappeared as the thick,
black clouds came rolling up, quickly covering the whole expanse of
heaven, and making the night one of inky darkness, save when the cliffs
and forest, islands and lake, were illumined by the vivid lightning's
flash.

Soothed by that awesome feeling which comes to many in the brief last
moments which precede the burst of the tempest, Oowikapun was comforted,
and began to say to himself, "At last I hear the voice of nature for
which I have so long been waiting, and now tranquillised I wait for all
she has to tell me of comfort and of rest."

Hardly had these thoughts passed through his mind ere there came a
lightning flash so vivid, and a thunderbolt so near and powerful,
followed by a crashing peal of thunder so sudden and so deafening, that
Oowikapun was completely stunned and thrown helpless to the ground.
When he recovered consciousness the storm had nearly died away. A few
muttering growls of thunder could still be heard, and some flashes of
lightning upon the distant horizon told in which direction the storm had
disappeared.

Oowikapun staggered to his feet, and tried to comprehend what had
happened. That something had struck him was evident. What it was at
first he was too bewildered to understand. Thinkin