held out his hands with a sign of joy and recovered strength.

"You came to help me; you have prayed for me; you have helped me; you
have been given something to say. Listen: you have told me of Abraham;
he was called to go out alone, quite alone. Now you have spoken to me of
Another who was alone." Toyner was incoherent. "That was why _He_ bore
it, that we might know that it was possible to have faith all alone
because He had it. It is easy to believe in God holding us up when
others do, but awfully hard all alone. He knew that, He warned them to
keep together; but all the same He lived out His prayers alone."

Toyner looked at the preacher, love and reverence in his eyes. "You
saved me once," he said; "you have saved me again."

But the preacher went home very sorrowful, for he did not believe that
Bart Toyner was saved.




CHAPTER XVIII.


The spiritual strength that proceeds from every holy man had again
flowed in life-giving stream from the preacher to Bart Toyner. The help
was adequate. Toyner never became intoxicated again.

His father died; and for two years or more the mother, who had lived
frugally all her life, still lived frugally, although land and money had
been left to her. The mother would not trust her son, and yet gradually