“Farewell, mother, I am off,” he said, kissing her upon the white forehead.

“Thee is going to the lumber camp, my son?” she asked, regarding him with ill-concealed pride.

“I am, and hope to press the truth home to the hearts of those who shall hear me,” replied the young devotee, his face lighting up with the blended rapture of religious enthusiasm, youth and health.

“The Lord be with thee and make thy ministrations fruitful,” his mother said, and with this blessing he set off.

As the young mystic had yesterday thought the world dark and stormy because of the tempest in his soul, so now he thought it still and peaceful, because of his inward calm.  The very intensity of his recent struggles had rendered his soul acutely sensitive, like a delicate musical instrument which responded freely to the innumerable fingers wherewith Nature struck its keys.  Her manifold forms, her gorgeous colors, her gigantic forces thrilled and intoxicated him.

That sense of fellowship with all the forms of life about him, which is characteristic of all our moments of deepest rapture in the embrace of Nature, filled his soul with joy.  He accosted the trees as one greets a friend; he chatted with the brooks; he held conversation with the little lambs skipping in the pastures, and with the horses that whinnied as he passed.

Such opulent moments come to all in youth; moments when the soul, unconscious of its chains because they have not been stretched to their limits, roams the universe with God-like liberty and joy.

Had he been asked to analyze these exquisite emotions, the young Quaker would have said that they were the joys of the indwelling of the Divine Spirit.  He did not realize how much of his exhilaration came from the feelings awakened by the experiences of the day before.  One might almost say that a spiritual fragrance from the woman who had crossed his path was diffusing itself through the chambers of his soul.  It was like the odor of violets which lingers after the flowers themselves are gone.

Up to this time, he had never felt the mighty and mysterious emotion of love.  More than once, when he had seen the calm face of Dorothy Fraser, soft and tender feelings had arisen in his heart; but they were only the first faint gleams of that conflagration which sooner or later breaks forth in the souls of men like him.

It was this confusion of the sources of his happiness which made him oblivious to the struggle that was still going on within his mind.  The question had been raised there as to whether he had chosen wisely in turning his back upon the joys of an earthly life for the joys of heaven.  It had not been settled, and was waiting an opportunity to thrust itself again before his consciousness.  In the meantime he was happy.  Never had he seemed to himself more perfectly possessed by the Divine Spirit than at the moment when he reached the summit of the last hill, and looked