she had
been right truth was self-revealing. A few minutes ago those words had
been to her an unfulfilled, a vain promise the speaker, broad-hearted
and loving as he was, had doubtless been deluded. But now the voice
spoke to her, called her by name, told her what she wanted.

"Dolly," became to her a parable of life. She had been like that little
child; for years and years she had been toiling up over rough stones
and slippery pebbles, but at last she had heard the voice. Was this the
coming to the Father?

That which often appears sudden and unaccountable is, if we did but
know it, a slow, beautiful evolution. It was now very nearly seven years
since the autumn afternoon when the man "too nice to be a clergyman,"
and "not a bit like a Christian," had come to Erica's home, had shown
her that at least one of them practiced the universal brotherliness
which almost all preached. It was nearly seven years since words of
absolute conviction, words of love and power, had first sounded forth
from Christian lips in her father's lecture hall, and had awakened in
her mind that miserably uncomfortable question "supposing Christianity
should be true?"

All the most beautiful influences are quiet; only the destructive
agencies, the stormy wind, the heavy rain and hail, are noisy. Love of
the deepest sort is wordless, the sunshine steals down silently, the dew
falls noiselessly, and the communion of spirit with spirit is calmer and
quieter than anything else in the world quiet as the spontaneous turning
of the sunflower to the sun when the heavy clouds have passed away, and
the light and warmth reveal themselves. The subdued rustle of leaves,
the hushed footsteps sounded as usual in the great library, but Erica
was beyond the perception of either place or time.

Presently she was recalled by the arrival of another student, who took
the chair next to hers a little deformed man, with a face which looked
prematurely old, and sad, restless eyes. A few hours before she would
have regarded him with a sort of shuddering compassion; now with the
compassion there came to her the thought of compensation which even here
and now might make the poor fellow happy. Was he not immortal? Might he
not here and now learn what she had just learned, gain that unspeakable
joy? And might not the knowledge go on growing and increasing forever?
She took up her pen once more, verified the dates, rolled up her
manuscript, and with one look at Livingstones