fidel. The lecturer explained
how matter had probably evolved from some one form--even the elements
coming in a most natural way from a common source. He made it plain that
all matter is but a form of motion; that atoms themselves are divided
into ions and corpuscles, which are merely different forms of electrical
motion, and that all this motion seems to tend to one form, which is the
spirit of the universe. Dan said he had found God there, and, although
the pious were shocked, in our office we were glad that Dan had found
his God anywhere. While we were sitting in front of the office one fine
evening this spring, looking at the stars and talking of Dan Gregg's God
and ours, we began to wonder whether or not the God that is the spirit
of things at the base of this material world might not be indeed the
spirit that moves men to execute His laws. Men in the colleges to-day
think they have found the moving spirit of matter; but do they know His
wonderful being as well as the old Hebrew prophets knew it who wrote
the Psalms and the Proverbs and the wisdom of the Great Book. That
brought us back to the old question about John Markley. Was it God,
moving in us, that punished Markley "by the rod of His wrath," that used
our hearts as wireless stations for His displeasure to travel through,
or was it the chance prejudice of a simple people? It was late when we
broke up and left the office--Dan Gregg, Henry Larmy, the reporter, and
old George. As we parted, looking up at the stars where our ways divided
out under the elms, we heard, far up Exchange Street, the clatter of the
pianola in the Markley home, and saw the high windows glowing like lost
souls in the night.

VIII

"A Bundle of Myrrh"

One of the first things that a new reporter on our paper has to learn is
the kinology of the town. Until he knows who is kin to whom, and how, a
reporter is likely at any time to make a bad break. Now, the kinology of
a country town is no simple proposition. After a man has spent ten years
writing up weddings, births and deaths, attending old settlers' picnics,
family reunions and golden weddings, he may run into a new line of kin
that opens a whole avenue of hitherto unexplainable facts to him,
showing why certain families line up in the ward primaries, and why
certain others are fighting tooth and toe-nail.

The only person in town who knows all of our kinology--and most of that
in the county, where it is a separate and inter