. "No, yer mishun, Brother Gideon, is to seek Him
in the by-ways, in the wilderness,--where the foxes hev holes and the
ravens hev their young,--but not in the Temples of the people. Wot sez
Sister Parsons?"

One of the female faces detached itself from the tent flaps, which it
nearly resembled in color, and brought forward an angular figure
clothed in faded fustian that had taken the various shades and odors of
household service.

"Brother Silas speaks well," said Sister Parsons, with stridulous
fluency. "It's fore-ordained. Fore-ordinashun is better nor
ordinashun, saith the Lord. He shall go forth, turnin' neither to the
right hand nor the left hand, and seek Him among the lost tribes and
the ungodly. He shall put aside the temptashun of Mammon and the
flesh." Her eyes and those of Brother Silas here both sought the other
female face, which was that of a young girl of seventeen.

"Wot sez little Sister Meely,--wot sez Meely Parsons?" continued
Brother Silas, as if repeating an unctuous formula.

The young girl came hesitatingly forward, and with a nervous cry of
"Oh, Gideon!" threw herself on the breast of the young man.

For a moment they remained locked in each other's arms. In the
promiscuous and fraternal embracings which were a part of the
devotional exercises of the hour, the act passed without significance.
The young man gently raised her face. She was young and comely, albeit
marked with a half-frightened, half-vacant sorrow. "Amen," said
Brother Gideon, gravely.

He mounted his horse and turned to go. Brother Silas had clasped his
powerful arms around both women and was holding them in a ponderous
embrace.

"Go forth, young man, into the wilderness."

The young man bowed his head, and urged his horse forward in the bleak
and barren plain. In half an hour every vestige of the camp and its
unwholesome surroundings was lost in the distance. It was as if the
strong desiccating wind, which seemed to spring up at his horse's feet,
had cleanly erased the flimsy structures from the face of the plain,
swept away the lighter breath of praise and plaint, and dried up the
easy-flowing tears. The air was harsh but pure; the grim economy of
form and shade and color in the level plain was coarse but not vulgar;
the sky above him was cold and distant but not repellent; the moisture
that had been denied his eyes at the prayer-meeting overflowed them
here; the words that had choked his utterance an hou