advanced with her days of shadow and thoughtfulness--two years
having now passed--he was in possession of his meagre fortune,
wrung out of earth, out of sweat and strength and devotion.

Only a few days remained now before his leaving for the university--
very solemn tender days about the house with his father and
mother.

And now for the lad's own sake, as for the clearer guidance of
those who may care to understand what so incredibly befell him
afterward, an attempt must be made to reveal somewhat of his
spiritual life during those two years. It was this, not hard work,
that writ his history.

As soon as he had made up his mind to study for the ministry, he
had begun to read his Bible absorbingly, sweeping through that
primitive dawn of life among the Hebrews and that second, brilliant
one of the Christian era. He had few other books, none important;
he knew nothing of modern theology or modern science. Thus he was
brought wholly under the influence of that view of Man's place in
Nature which was held by the earliest Biblical writers, has imposed
itself upon countless millions of minds since then, and will
continue to impose itself--how much longer?

As regarded, then, his place in Nature, this boy became a
contemporary of the Psalmist; looked out upon the physical universe
with the eye of Job; placed himself back beside that simple,
audacious, sublime child--Man but awakening from his cradle of
faith in the morning of civilization. The meaning of all which to
him was this: that the most important among the worlds swung in