ced and snow-crowned old man, but when he spoke it was always
with a gentle dignity, and a depth of sympathy and feeling that
compelled attention.

"It is a great satisfaction, my dear Fathers," he began, "to find so
many of you here to rejoice with our young friend and his devoted
people, and to thus encourage the growth of a priestly life which he
has so well begun in Alta. No one glories in his success more than I.
No one more warmly than I, his Bishop, tenders congratulations. This
is truly a day the Lord has made--this day in Alta. It is a day of
joy and gladness for priest and people. Will you pardon an old man if
he stems the tide of mirth for an instant? He could not hope to stem
it for long. On such an occasion as this it would burst the barriers,
leaving what he would show you once more submerged beneath rippling
waters and silver-tipped waves of laughter. It seems wrong even to
think of the depths where lie the bodies of the dead and the hulks of
the wrecked. But the bottom always has its treasure as well as its
tragedy. There are both a tragedy and a treasure in the story I will
tell you to-day."

"You remember Father Belmond, the first pastor of Alta? Yes! Then let
me tell you a story that your generous priestly souls will treasure as
it deserves."

The table was strangely silent. Not one of the guests had ever before
known the depth of sympathy in the old Bishop till now. Every chord in
the nature of each man vibrated to the touch of his words.

[Illustration: "I asked him how he lived on the pittance he had
received."]

"It was ten years ago," went on the Bishop--"ah, how years fly fast to
the old!--a friend of college days, a bishop in an Eastern State,
wrote me a long letter concerning a young convert he had just
ordained. He was a lad of great talents, brilliant and handsome, the
son of wealthy parents, who, however, now cast him off, giving him to
understand that he would receive nothing from them. The young man was
filled with zeal, and he begged the bishop to give him to some
missionary diocese wherein he could work in obscurity for the greater
glory of God. He was so useful and so brilliant a man that the bishop
desired to attach him to his own household and was loath to lose him,
but the priest begged hard and was persistent; so the bishop asked me
to take him for a few years and give him actual contact with the
hardships of life in a pioneer state. Soon, he thought, the young man
would be