swung back and forth between this world and the next. Philip stayed on
and so was gone one Sunday from his pulpit in Milton. Then the week
following, as Alfred gradually came back from the shore of that other
world, Philip, assured that he would live, returned home.

During that ten days' absence serious events had taken place in Calvary
Church. Philip reached home on Wednesday. He at once went to the house
and greeted his wife and the Brother Man, and William, who was now
sitting up in the large room.

He had not been home more than an hour when the greatest dizziness came
over him. He sat up so much with his chum that he was entirely worn out.
He went upstairs to lie down on his couch in his small study. He
instantly fell asleep and dreamed that he was standing on the platform
of Calvary Church, preaching. It was the first Sunday of a month. He
thought he said something the people did not like. Suddenly a man in the
audience raised a revolver and fired at him. At once, from over the
house, people aimed revolvers at him and began to fire. The noise was
terrible, and in the midst of it he awoke to feel to his amazement that
his wife was kneeling at the side of his couch, sobbing with a heartache
that was terrible to him; he was instantly wide awake and her dear head
clasped in his arms. And when he prayed her to tell him the matter, she
sobbed out the news to him which her faithful, loving heart had
concealed from him while he was at the bedside of his friend. And even
when the news of what the church had done in his absence had come to him
fully through her broken recital of it, he did not realize it until she
placed in his hands the letter which the church had voted to be written,
asking him to resign his pastorate of Calvary Church. Even then he
fingered the envelope in an absent way, and for an instant his eyes left
the bowed form of his wife and looked out beyond the sheds over to the
tenements. Then he opened the letter and read it.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Philip read the letter through without lifting his eyes from the paper
or making any comment. It was as follows:

PHILIP STRONG, Calvary Church, Milton:

As clerk of the church I am instructed to inform you of the action of
the church at a regularly called meeting last Monday night. At that
meeting it was voted by a majority present that you be asked to resign
the pastorate of Calvary Church for the following reasons:

1. There is a very widespread disco