the back of the seat. There was comfort and a soothing sensation of
human companionship in the touch of that baby's hand; it seemed a
link in the electric chain of sympathy, and, after a time, the
orphan's eyes closed--fatigue conquered memory and sorrow, and she
fell asleep with her lips pressed to those mesmeric baby fingers,
and Grip's head resting against her knee.

Diamond-powdered "lilies of the field" folded their perfumed petals
under the Syrian dew, wherewith God nightly baptized them in token
of his ceaseless guardianship, and the sinless world of birds, the
"fowls of the air," those secure and blithe, yet improvident, little
gleaners in God's granary, nestled serenely under the shadow of the
Almighty wing; but was the all-seeing, all-directing Eye likewise
upon that desolate and destitute young mourner who sank to rest with
"Our Father which art in heaven" upon her trembling lips? Was it a
decree in the will and wisdom of our God, or a fiat from the blind
fumbling of Atheistic Chance, or was it in accordance with the rigid
edict of Pantheistic Necessity, that at that instant the cherubim of
death swooped down, on the sleeping passengers, and silver cords and
golden bowls were rudely snapped and crushed, amid the crash of
timbers, the screams of women and children, and the groans of
tortured men, that made night hideous? Over the holy hills of Judea,
out of crumbling Jerusalem, the message of Messiah has floated on
the wings of eighteen centuries: "What I do thou knowest not now,
but thou shalt know hereafter."

Edna was awakened by a succession of shrill sounds, which indicated
that the engineer was either frightened or frantic; the conductor
rushed bare-headed through the car; people sprang to their feet;
there was a scramble on the platform; then a shock and crash as if