Having finished the lesson, he closed the volume and began to pray. Now
that his eyes were shut, the strangeness of the situation vanished
entirely. He was no longer alone, for God was with him. The petition was
full of devotion, tenderness and faith, and as he poured it forth his
countenance beamed like that of an angel. When it was finished he began
the sermon. The first few words were scarcely audible. The thoughts were
disconnected and fragmentary. He suffered an unfamiliar and painful
embarrassment, but struggled on, and his thoughts cleared themselves
like a brook by flowing. Each effort resulted in a greater facility of
utterance, and soon the joy of triumph began to inspire him. The old
confidence returned at last and his soul, filled with faith and hope and
fervor, poured itself forth in a full torrent. He began to be awed by
the conjecture that his errand had some extraordinary although hidden
import. Who could tell what mission these words were to accomplish in
the plans of God? He remembered that the waves made by the smallest
pebble flung into the ocean widen and widen until they touch the
farthest shore, and he flung the pebbles of his speech into the great
ocean of thought, transported by the hope of sometime learning that
their waves had beat upon the shores of a distant universe.

Suddenly, in the midst of this tumultuous rush of speech, he heard, or
thought he heard, a sound. It seemed to him like a sob and there
followed stumbling footsteps as of some one in hurried flight, but he
was too absorbed to be more than dimly conscious of anything save his
own emotions.

And yet, slight as was this interruption, it served to agitate his mind
and bring him down from the realms of imagination to the world of
reality. His thoughts began to flow less easily and his tongue