* * * * * *

The next morning dawned murky and cool.  A thin, struggling rain beat against the windows of Hubert’s room when he woke.  Things look different by the cold light of day, especially if the day be rainy, from the same things seen by gaslight.  With Hubert’s instant memory of the night before, came the temptation to dismiss its happenings as a dream and go back to his former way of living.  But he could not do so in honesty.  He had made a pledge to a supposed Being, whom he must now treat as a reality until the most honest experiment proved Him not to he, or to be inaccessible.  Clearly a line of procedure formed itself in his mind.  He must seek to know those laws, or principles, that governed the new realm which he sought to enter, and endeavor to adjust himself to them.

So he took from its place on the shelves the Book that was most likely of all to give the suggestions he needed, because it dealt specifically with the matter in hand.  Of all those who bore witness in the Book the most remarkable one was Jesus Christ.  So he turned to the New Testament, and to the Gospels.  He was none too familiar with their teachings, but he believed that of them all the Gospel of John contained the fullest statement of abstract principles.  He would read it.

It was still early, and he settled himself for an hour’s study.  It occurred to him to invoke afresh that One whom he was seeking for light upon His own law.  An impulse of pride almost deterred him, but he thought,

“If He is, and I am His creature, I can afford to be humble.  Indeed, it is the only fitting thing.”

So he bowed his head and said: 

“O God, I am seeking Thee.  Help me to understand the truth.”

He found the Gospel of John, and began at the beginning.  He read the sublime statements concerning the Word, and wondered if they were true.  If true, it was the most wonderful fact in the world.  If untrue—­oh, what darkness lay in the shadow of so great light’s negation!  He read the twelfth verse, and the thirteenth, and pondered them in the light of the foregoing statement.  If they were true, then He who was “with God,” who “was God”—­he paused to consider the mysterious relationship; mysterious, yet not thereby incredible; he would not repeat the folly of the gardener by too ready unbelief!  If true, then God, that eternal Word, came down to man, and “as many as received Him,” to them it was granted to become the sons of God!  They were translated into the realm whence He came forth.

The stupendous fact—­if fact?—­glowed like a sun-lit prism and awoke an ardent longing that it might be so.  Ah, to escape the limits of this petty life!  How mean and small it seemed.  Man at his best, his grandest, but to live out a brief day, and then go out into the uncertain darkness forever!  If God had ordained a way into His own infinite realm, surely it was worth the finding.