Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and mind.  His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the life which he had always lived.  It was not mere breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them.  Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into this precious draught.  The poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he had ever written.  His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance, with the glory of white hair diffused about it.  At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest.  Its look of grand beneficence seemed to embrace the world.

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms aloft, and shouted: 

“Behold!  Behold!  Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face!”

Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said was true.  The prophecy was fulfilled.  But Ernest, having finished what he had to say, took the poet’s arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by appear, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE.

THE GENTLE BOY

By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

In the course of the year 1656, several of the people called Quakers, led, as they professed, by the inward movement of the spirit, made their appearance in New England.  Their reputation, as holders of mystic and pernicious principles, having spread before them, the Puritans early endeavored to banish, and to prevent the further intrusion of the rising sect.  But the measures by which it was intended to purge the land of heresy, though more than sufficiently vigorous, were entirely unsuccessful.  The Quakers, esteeming persecution as a divine call to the post of danger, laid claim to a holy courage, unknown to the Puritans themselves, who had shunned the cross, by providing for the peaceable exercise of their religion in a distant wilderness.  Though it was the singular fact, that every nation of the earth rejected the wandering enthusiasts who practiced peace toward all men, the place of greatest uneasiness and peril, and therefore, in their eyes, the most eligible, was the province of Massachusetts Bay.