because of it, it was a gentle, happy face.

It is happiness that is the culmination of sainthood. You may look
through the pictures of the saints of all ages and find enthusiasm and
righteousness in many and the degree of faith that these imply; but
where you find joy too, there has been the greatest faith, the greatest
saintliness.

Bart found himself clothed and fed; he felt the warm clasp of a human
hand in his, and some self-respect came back to him by the contact. The
face and the hand belonged to a mission preacher, and Bart arose and
followed his friend to a place where there was the sound of many feet
hurrying and a great concourse of people was gathered in a wood without
the town.

It was only with curiosity that Bart looked about him at the high trees
that stretched their green canopy above, at the people who ranged
themselves in a hollow of the wood--one of nature's theatres. Curiosity
passed into strong emotion of maudlin sentiment when the great
congregation sang a hymn. He sat upon a bench at the back and wept tears
that even to himself had neither sense nor truth. Yet there was in them
the stirring of something inarticulate, incomprehensible, like the
stirring that comes at spring-time in the heart of the seed that lies
below the ground. After that the voice of the preacher began to make its
way slowly through the dull, dark mind of the drunkard.

The preacher spoke of the wonderful love of God manifested in a certain
definite offer of salvation, a certain bargain, which, if closed with,
would bring heaven to the soul of every man.