with the common people, told the
story of his night vigils with the Christ he adored.

It was at this particular time that a special event occurred which put
its mark on Philip's work in Milton and became a part of its web and
woof--a thing hard to tell, but necessary to relate as best one may.

He came home late one evening from church meeting, letting himself into
the parsonage with his night-key, and, not seeing his wife in the
sitting-room, where she was in the habit of reading and sewing, he walked
on into the small sewing-room, where she sometimes sat at special work,
thinking to find her there. She was not there, and Philip opened the
kitchen door and inquired of the servant, who sat there reading, where
his wife was.

"I think she went upstairs a little while ago," was the reply.

Philip went at once upstairs into his study, and, to his alarm, found
that his wife had fainted. She lay on the floor in front of his desk. As
Philip stooped to raise her he noticed two pieces of paper, one of them
addressed to "The Preacher," and the other to "The Preacher's Wife."
They were anonymous scrawls, threatening the lives of the minister and
his wife. On his desk, driven deep into the wood, was a large knife.
Then, said Philip with a prayer: "Verily, an enemy hath done this."

CHAPTER VII.

The anonymous letters, or rather scrawls, which Philip found by the side
of his unconscious wife as he stooped to raise her up, read as follows:

"PREACHER: Better pack up and leave. Milton is not big enough to hold
you alive. Take warning in time."

"PREACHER'S WIFE: As long as you stay in Milton there is danger of two
funerals. Dynamite kills women as well as men."

Philip sat by the study lounge holding these scrawls in his hand as his
wife recovered from her fainting fit after he had applied restoratives.
His heart was filled with horror at the thought of the complete
cowardice which could threaten the life of an innocent woman. There was
with it all a feeling of intense contempt of such childish, dime-novel
methods of intimidation as that of sticking a knife into the study desk.
If it had not been for its effect on his wife, Philip would have laughed
at the whole thing. As it was, he was surprised and alarmed that she had
fainted--a thing he had never known her to do; and as soon as she was
able to speak he listened anxiously to her story.

"It must have been an hour after you had gone, Philip, that I thought I
hea