mind went back to a scene in undergraduate days. It was the Corn Exchange
at Cambridge, where the most famous of all American evangelists was holding
one of a series of revivalist meetings. The great bare hall was packed with
youths, who came, some to scoff and others to pray. The coarse-figured,
bald-headed, brown-bearded man in black on the platform, with his homely
phrase and (to polite undergraduate ears) terrible Yankee twang, was
talking vehemently of the trivial instruments the Almighty used to effect
His purposes. Moses's rod, for instance. "You can imagine Pharaoh," said
he--and the echo of the great voice came to Septimus through the
years--"you can imagine Pharaoh walking down the street one day and seeing
Moses with a great big stick in his hand. 'Hallo, Moses,' says he, 'where
are you going?' 'Where am I going?' says Moses. 'I guess I'm going to
deliver the Children of Israel out of the House of Bondage and conduct them
to a land flowing with milk and honey.' 'And how are you going to do it,
Moses?' '_With this rod, sir, with this rod!_'"

Septimus remembered how this bit of unauthenticated history was greeted
with derision by the general, and with a shocked sense of propriety by the
cultivated--and young men at the university can be very cultivated indeed
on occasion. But the truth the great preacher intended to convey had
lingered at the back of his own mind and now came out into the light.
Perhaps Emmy had spoken more truly than she thought. In his simple heart he
realized himself to be the least effectual of men, apparently as unhelpful
towards a great deliverance as the walking stick used by Moses. But if God
had sent him to Nunsmere Common and destined him to be the mean instrument
of Emmy's deliverance? He rubbed the warm pipe bowl against his cheek and
excogitated the matter in deep humility. Yes, perhaps God had sent him. His
religious belief was nebulous, but up to its degree of clarity it was
sincere.