The Reign of Law

any states. Some never to return, having passed from the life of a school into the school of life; so

was fragrant with flowers brought from commencement; when a south wind sent ripples over the campus grass; and outside the campus, across the street, the yards were glowing with ro

id sat at his table by his open wind

e a man in his place to work on the farm during the summer. He said nothing of his doubts and troubles, but gave as the reason of his remaining away what indeed the reason was: that he wished to study during the vacation; it was the best chance he had ever had, perhaps would ever have; and it was of the utmost importance to

aptain. But he must remain where he was; what he had to do must be done quickly-a great duty was involved. And they must write to him oftener because he would need their letters, their love, more than ever now. And so God keep them in health an

ilure as best he could. But compensation for all this were the new interests, hopes, ambitions, which centred in the life of his son. To see him a minister, a religious leader among men-that would be happiness enough for him. His family had always been a religious people. One thing he was already looking forward to: he wanted his son to preach his first sermon in the neighborhood church founded by the lad's great-grandfather-that would

immovable bef

was to spend the summer there, having no means of getting away with his wife and children. Though he sometimes went off himself, to hold meetings where he could and for what might be paid him; now preaching and baptizing in the mountains; now back again, laboring in his shirt-sleeves at the Pentateuch and the elementary structure of the English language. Such troubles as Dav

imes when the day's work was done and the sober, still twilights came on, this reverent soul, sitting with his family gathered about him near the threshold of his single homeless room,-his oldest boy st

ndation, ye sai

r faith in His

for a little more reading. More than once he waited, listening in the darkness, to the re

t, there most he read. He was not the only reader. He was one of a multitude which no man could know or number; for many read in secret. Ministers of the Gospel read in secret in their libraries, and locked the boo

heir wives and children. In the church, from highest ecclesiastic and layman, wherever in the professions a religious, sc

ardly he drew back from this step; yet take any other, throw up the whole matter,-that he could not do. Wi

s every day, required of him duties which he could not longer conscientiously discharge; they forced from him express

s came, as c

riday afternoon preceding. All day through the college corridors, or along the snow-paths leading to the town, there had been the glad noises of that wild riotous time: whistle and song and shout and hurrying feet, gripping hands, good wishes, and good-bys. One by one

, closed the door behind him, and sat down white and trembling in the nearest chair. About the middle of the room were seated the professors of the Bible

n the pastor's study; there had been other interviews-with the pastor, with the professors. They had done what they could to check him, to bring him back. They had long been counsellors; now in duty

sitting solitary there in the flesh, the imagination beheld a throng so countless as to have been summoned and controlled by the deep arraigning eye of Dante alone. Unawares, he stood at the head of an invisible host, which stretched backward through time till it could be traced no farther. Witnesses all to that sublime, indispensable part of man which is his Doubt-Doubt respecting his origin, his meaning, his Maker, and his destiny. That perpetual half-night of his planet-mind-that shadowed side of his orbit-life-forever attracted and held in place by the force of Deity, but destined never to receive its light. Yet from that chill, bleak side what things have not reached round and caught the sun!

and his pastor, it was one of the

emselves to be divinely appointed agents of the Judge of all the earth: His creatures chosen to punish His creatures. And so behind those professors, away back in history, were ranged Catholic popes and Protestant archbishops, and kings and queens, Protestant and Catholic, and great mediaeval jurists, and mailed knights and palm-bearing soldiers of the cross, and holy inquisito

s long pathway through bordering mysteries, man himself has been brought to see, time and again, that what was his doubt was his ignorance; what was his faith was his error; that things rejected have become believed,

ll, here was a duty to be done, an awful responsibility to be discharged in sorrow and with prayer; and grave good men

, for what he believed to be the truth, so far as man had learned it. The conference lasted through that short winter afternoon. In all that he said the lad showed tha

itself the solemn picture of a red winter sunset. The light entered the windows and fell on the lad's face. One last question had just been asked him by th

even belie

en; which was framed in us ere we were born, which comes fullest to life in us as life itself ebbs fastest. That question which exa

even belie

y, but remained looking over the still heads of his elders into that low red sunset sky. How often had he beheld it, when feeding the stock at frozen twilights. One vision rose before him now of his boyhood life at home-his hopes of the ministry

elieve

e what his young soul had been abl

was received into the congregation. He opened it at a place where it seemed used to lie apart. He held it before his face, but c

he best answer I can give jus

o he

eve; help Tho

e turned to another p

hrist and believe that Christ and God are one. I may not u

e not, I judge him not: for I came not to

hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have s

put it back into his pocke

aid, "that whether I believe in Him or do not believe i