of before. And in adding to the questions that may be asked, they
multiplied those that cannot be answered. The lad began to ask
these questions, began to get no answers. The ground of his
interest in the great Book shifted. Out on the farm alone with it
for two years, reading it never with a critical but always with a
worshipping mind, it had been to him simply the summons to a great
and good life, earthly and immortal. As he sat in the lecture
rooms, studying it book by book, paragraph by paragraph, writing
chalk notes about it on the blackboard, hearing the students recite
it as they recited arithmetic or rhetoric, a little homesickness
overcame him for the hours when he had read it at the end of a
furrow in the fields, or by his candle the last thing at night
before he kneeled to say his prayers, or of Sunday afternoons off
by himself in the sacred leafy woods. The mysterious untouched
Christ-feeling was in him so strong, that he shrank from these
critical analyses as he would from dissecting the body of the
crucified Redeemer.

A significant occurrence took place one afternoon some seven months
after he had entered the University.

On that day, recitations over, the lad left the college alone and
with a most thoughtful air crossed the campus and took his course
into the city. Reaching a great central street, he turned to the
left and proceeded until he stood opposite a large brick church.
Passing along the outside of this, he descended a few steps,
traversed an alley, knocked timidly at a door, and by a voice
within was bidden to enter. He did so, and stood in his pastor's
study. He had told his pastor that he would like to have a little
talk with him, and the pastor was there to have the little talk.