comrade into eternity.

CHAPTER XXV

THE LIGHT OF THE CROSS

The afternoon sun was flooding the whole landscape with the golden
glory of a burnished shield as Keith Steadman, the outcast, sat on a
mountain ridge looking down upon the village of the fierce Quelchie
Indians. His clothes were torn and tattered, his bronzed face and
hands scratched and bleeding. Gaunt, footsore and hungry, he presented
a forlorn figure, a mere speck on the mountain's brow.

Behind him Klassan lay, two hundred and fifty miles off. For ten days
he had been on the trail, along the Kaslo River, then up an unnamed
branch, through forests, over valleys and plains, and across a high
mountain pass.

Though an outcast, driven from home in disgrace, and the light of her
he loved so dearly, no shadow of a doubt crossed his mind concerning
the Father's goodness. He pictured his flock, which he had tended with
such care, scattered upon the many hills. He saw vice rampant at
Klassan, the church closed, the school unattended, and the Indians
exposed to every temptation. Nevertheless, he did not consume his
strength in useless whining, or rail at the blow which had fallen. His
soul was too large for that. He remembered the command his Master had
given to His disciples long ago, "When they persecute you in this city,
flee ye into another," and he felt it applied to him. Perhaps they had
been too secure and too self-centred at Klassan. For years no storms
had come to bend them, no wind of adversity to sift the chaff from the
wheat, and no fire of trial to purge the gold from the dross. Now, all
had come at once, and was it not for the best? "O Lord," he prayed,
"in the sifting and testing process may there be many who will stand
the trial, and come forth stronger and purer for the fire of
affliction?"

As for himself, he could not doubt the leading of the Divine hand. He
had been so much centred in his own flock, wrapped up in their welfare,
that he had neglected the sheep in the wilderness, who knew not the
name of Christ. He had been, like many an earnest pastor, too
parochial, unable to look beyond the bounds of his one field of labour.
He had forgotten that, though his work was of great value at Klassan,
after all "the field is the world," and that Christ's command was to
"go into the village over against you." He imagined that his presence
was absolutely necessary in his own circumscribed sphere of labour, and
overlooked the