Turning abruptly from the conductor, my companion flung out his long arms toward the staring passengers, and continued in his strident, startling tenor:—­“I have warned him.  I call you all to witness that I have warned this man of his fearful peril.  His blood be on his own head!  The blood of your souls will be upon your heads, unless you turn to Dispensationism.  I have said it.  Amen!”

Before he had sat down again I was in the alley on my way to another car, not anxious to become known as the intimate of this extraordinary apostle.  I found an empty seat by the Doctor, dropped into it, and told my story.

“My dear friend, give the fellow up,” I concluded.  “He’s as mad as he can possibly be.”

“So Festus thought of Paul,” returned my poor comrade, with hopeless fatuity.

“Festus be d——­d!” said I, losing my temper, and swearing for the first time since I graduated.

“I fear he was so,” remarked the Doctor, severely.  “Let me urge you to take warning from his fate.”

“I beg your pardon, and that of Festus,” I apologized.  “But when I see you losing your reason, I can’t keep my patience, and don’t wish to.”

“You will wonder at these feelings before many hours,” he responded gently.  “To-morrow you will be a believer.”

“That makes no difference with me now,” said I.  “I am just as skeptical as if I hadn’t a chance of conversion.  Why, Doctor,—­well, come now,—­I’ll argue the case with you.  In the first place, all Church history is against you.  There isn’t a respectable author who upholds the doctrine of modern miracles.”

“Mistake!” he exclaimed.  “I wish I had you in my library.  I could face you with writer on writer, fact on fact, all supporting my views.  I can prove that miracles have not ceased for eighteen centuries; that they appeared abundantly in the days of the venerable Catholic fathers; that a stream of prophecies and healings and tongues ran clear through the Dark Ages down to the Reformation; that the superhuman influence flamed in the dreams of Huss, the ecstasies of Xavier, and the marvels of Fox and Usher.  Look at the French Prophets, or Tremblers of the Cevennes, who had prophesyings and healings and discoverings of spirits and tongues and interpretations.  Look at the ecstatic Jansenists, or Convulsionists of St. Medard, who were blessed with the same holy gifts.  Look at the Quakers, from Fox downward, who have held it as a constant principle to expect powers, revelations, discernings of spirits, and instantaneous healings of diseases.  Why, here we are in our own days; here we are with our chain of miracles still unbroken; here we are in the midst of this geological and unbelieving nineteenth century.”

“Yes, here we are,” said I; “and we must make the best of it.  It’s a bad affair, of course, to live in scientific times; and it’s a great pity that we were not born in the Dark Ages; but it is too late to try to help it.”