he peculiar
atmosphere of their isolation, making a place for himself, shutting out
almost as if they had never existed the harassments and questionings of
his previous life. Was it a buoyancy he had received from his mountain
height and the morning air? Whatever the cause, he seemed to have
settled with them all, and arrived at last where his spirit needed but
to rest open and receptive before its Creator to be swept clear of the
dross of the world's estimates of values, and exalted with aspiration.

Every long breath he drew seemed to make his mental vision clearer. God
and his own soul--was that all? Not quite. God and the souls of men and
of women--of all who came within his environment--a world made
beautiful, made sweet and health-giving for these--and with them to know
God, to feel Him near. So Christ came to be close to humanity.

A mist of scepticism that had hung over him and clouded the later years
of his young manhood suddenly rolled away, dispelled by the splendor of
this triumphant thought, even as the rays of the rising sun came at the
same moment to dispel the earth mists and flood the hills with light.
Light; that was it! "In Him is no darkness at all."

Joyously he set himself to the preparation for the day. The true meaning
of life was revealed to him. The discouragement of the evening before
was gone. Yet now should he sit down in ecstatic dreaming? It must be
joy in life--movement--in whatever was to be done, whether in satisfying
a wholesome hunger, in creating warmth for his body, or in conquering
the seeds of decay and disease therein, and keeping it strong and full
of reactive power for his soul's sake.

It was a revelation to him of the eternal God, wonder-working and
all-pervading. Now no longer with a haunting sense of fear would he
search and learn, but with a glad perception of the beautiful
orderliness of the universe, so planned and arranged for the souls of
men when only they should learn how to use their own lives, and attune
themselves to give forth music to the touch of the God of Love.

A cold bath, the pure air, and his abstemiousness of the previous
evening gave him a compelling hunger, and it was with satisfaction he
discovered so large a portion of his dinner of yesterday remaining to be
warmed for his morning meal. What he should do later, when dinner-time
arrived, he knew not, and he laughed to think how he was living from
hour to hour, content as the small wren fluting bes