She looked strongly agitated. No one noticed it particularly. They
were all excited over the strange event, the strangest that First
Church people could remember. But the minister insisted on taking
charge of the man, and when a carriage came the unconscious but
living form was carried to his house; and with the entrance of that
humanity into the minister's spare room a new chapter in Henry
Maxwell's life began, and yet no one, himself least of all, dreamed
of the remarkable change it was destined to make in all his after
definition of the Christian discipleship.

The event created a great sensation in the First Church parish.
People talked of nothing else for a week. It was the general
impression that the man had wandered into the church in a condition
of mental disturbance caused by his troubles, and that all the time
he was talking he was in a strange delirium of fever and really
ignorant of his surroundings. That was the most charitable
construction to put upon his action. It was the general agreement
also that there was a singular absence of anything bitter or
complaining in what the man had said. He had, throughout, spoken in
a mild, apologetic tone, almost as if he were one of the
congregation seeking for light on a very difficult subject.

The third day after his removal to the minister's house there was a
marked change in his condition. The doctor spoke of it but offered
no hope. Saturday morning he still lingered, although he had rapidly
failed as the week drew near its close. Sunday morning, just before
the clock struck one, he rallied and asked if his child had come.
The minister had sent for her at once as soon as he had been able to
secure her address from some letters found in the man's pocket. He