el in darkness and the work we do in all
seriousness counts for naught, and the thing we toss off in play-time,
unconsciously, God uses!

One tow-headed boy sitting there in a front row dreaming dreams, if the
sermons touched him not, was yet thrilled to the depths of his being by
that tall preacher. Somewhere, I said, he had a spark within him. I
think he never knew it: or if he knew it, he regarded it as a wayward
impulse that might lead him from his God. It was a spark of poetry:
strange flower in such a husk. In times of emotion it bloomed, but in
daily life it emitted no fragrance. I have wondered what might have been
if some one--some understanding woman--had recognised his gift, or if he
himself as a boy had once dared to cut free! We do not know: we do not
know the tragedy of our nearest friend!

By some instinct the preacher chose his readings mostly from the Old
Testament--those splendid, marching passages, full of oriental imagery.
As he read there would creep into his voice a certain resonance that
lifted him and his calling suddenly above his gray surroundings.

How vividly I recall his reading of the twenty-third Psalm--a particular
reading. I suppose I had heard the passage many times before, but upon
this certain morning----

Shall I ever forget? The windows were open, for it was May, and a boy
could look out on the hillside and see with longing eyes the inviting
grass and trees. A soft wind blew in across the church; it was full of
the very essence of spring. I smell it yet. On the pulpit stood a bunch
of crocuses crowded into a vase: some Mary's offering. An old man named
Johnson who sat near us was already beginning to breathe heavily,
preparatory to sinking into his regular Sunday snore. Then those words
from the preacher, bringing me suddenly--how shall I express it?--out of
some formless void, to intense consciousness--a miracle of creation:

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me."

Well, I saw the way to the place of death that morning; far more vividly
I saw it than any natural scene I know: and myself walking therein. I
shall know it again when I come to pass that way; the tall, dark, rocky
cliffs, the shadowy path within, the overhanging dark branches, even the
whitened dead bones by the way--and as one of the vivid phantasms of
boyhood--cloaked figures I saw, lurking mysteriously in d