his first hymn, "Rock of Ages." Even the organ blundered as it played so
common a tune as Rousseau's Dream, and I, who learning counterpoint,
feared to be seen singing so ordinary a melody, lest it should set me
down as unmusical for ever. But soon my concern was with the unfortunate
young man, for he was, I felt sure, quite ignorant of the habits of such
congregations as ours, and would certainly offend our best people. For
after that we read the parable of the Prodigal Son and sang, "The Sands
of Time are Sinking." Then I forgot even this curious lapse from our
Sunday custom, so clearly did the tale now begun by the preacher bring
again before my eyes those inhuman sands, that lonely sky, and the
unstayed power of the sea.

He had chosen, so he said, for his service this morning the favourite
hymns, Scripture, and text of an obscure member of the congregation
taken from earth in a strange manner the day before. For more years than
he could remember, there had come and gone in that congregation an old
blind man. He had heard him spoken of from time to time in a kindly
contemptuous, way as "Old Born Again," and it was by that nickname he
would speak of him this morning, but he could find no place in his
intelligence for contempt, for Old Born Again now saw and knew the
things which prophets and kings desire to look into.

He had lived for many years thus. He was a widower living with a married
daughter, whose husband was a fisherman. She herself kept a
greengrocer's shop of the poorer kind. She had five children, the
eldest, a boy of thirteen, earning his living with her in the shop. He
and his blind grandfather went round the district every day with a small
cart and horse, selling their vegetables from house to house and thus
enlarging their custom. The boy guided the horse and his grandfather
helped with the selling and the money. In the early morning at the end