of the
redeemed soul comprehensibly proclaimed to the young spirit that had
begun to yearn for something beyond the outside. Light began to shine
through the outward ordinances; the Church; the world, life, and death,
were revealed as something absolutely new; a redeeming, cleansing,
sanctifying power was made known, and seemed to inspire him with a new
life, joy, and hope. He was no longer feeling himself necessarily
crushed by the fetters of death, or only delivered from absolute peril
by a mechanism that had lost its heart, but he could enter into the
glorious liberty of the sons of God, in process of being saved, not _in_
sin but _from_ sin.

It was an era in his life, and Tibble heard him sobbing, but with very
different sobs from those in the Pardon chapel. When it was over, and
the blessing given, Ambrose looked up from the hands which had covered
his face with a new radiance in his eyes, and drew a long breath.
Tibble saw that he was like one in another world, and gently led him
away.

"Who is he? What is he? Is he an angel from Heaven?" demanded the boy,
a little wildly, as they neared the southern door.

"If an angel be a messenger of God, I trow he is one," said Tibble.
"But men call him Dr Colet. He is Dean of Saint Paul's Minster, and
dwelleth in the house you see below there."

"And are such words as these to be heard every Sunday?"

"On most Sundays doth he preach here in the nave to all sorts of folk."

"I must--I must hear it again!" exclaimed Ambrose.

"Ay, ay," said Tibble, regarding him with a well-pleased face. "You are
one with whom it works."

"Every Sunday!" repeated Ambrose. "Why do not all--your master and all
these," pointing to the holiday crowds going to and fro--"why do they
not all come to listen?"

"Master doth come by times," said Tibble, in the tone of irony that was
hard to understand. "He owneth the dean as a rare preacher."

Ambrose did not try to understand. He exclaimed again, panting as if
his thoughts were too strong for his words--

"Lo you, that preacher-dean call ye him?--putteth a soul into what hath
hitherto been to me but a dead and empty framework."

Tibble held out his hand almost unconsciously, and Ambrose pressed it.
Man and boy, alike they had felt the electric current of that truth,
which, suppressed and ignored among man's inventions, was coming as a
new revelation to many, and was already beginning to convulse the Church
and the world.

Am