house of worship. The still, earnest men and women, the droning of the
precentor, the antiquated singing pleased and soothed him. He did not
notice much the thin little fair man who conducted the services; for he
was holding a session with his own soul.

A peculiar movement among the congregation announced that the sermon was
beginning, and David, looking up, saw that the officiating minister had
been changed. This man was swarthy and tall, and looked like some old
Jewish prophet, as he lifted his rapt face and cried, like one crying in
the wilderness, "Friends! I have a question to ask you to-night: '_What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own
soul_?'"

For twenty-three years David had silenced that voice, but it had found
him out again--it was Willie Caird's. At first interested and curious,
David soon became profoundly moved as Willie, in clear, solemn,
thrilling sentences, reasoned of life and death and judgment to come.
Not that he followed his arguments, or was more than dimly conscious of
the moving eloquence that stirred the crowd as a mighty wind stirs the
trees in the forest: for that dreadful question smote, and smote, and
smote upon his heart as if determined to have an answer.

_What shall it profit? What shall it profit? What shall it profit_?
David was quick enough at counting material loss and profit, but here
was a question beyond his computation. He went silently out of the
church, and wandered away by Holyrood Palace and St. Anthony's Chapel to
the pathless, lonely beauty of Salisbury Crags. There was no answer in
nature for him. The stars were silent above, the earth silent beneath.
Weariness brought him no rest; if he slept, he woke with the start of a
hunted soul, and found him asking that same dreadful question. When he