“He shall send His angels with a trumpet, and a great voice, and they shall gather the elect upon the four winds.  Two shall be in the fields; one shall be taken and the other left.”  He suddenly broke off the recitation with a heartpiercing cry.  “My Lord and my God!  Let none of Thy children here be left.  Let none of those loved ones, for whom they have come here to entreat Thee, be among those who are left.  Let it suffice Thee, Lord, that these have come to meet Thee on Thy way, to ask Thee that not one of their beloved may be passed over now, when Thou comest—­Now!”

The last word was insistent.  And then he passed once more into the prayer that had been the burden of his heart and voice on the night that Alec had first met him.  That seemed to be the one thought of his poor crazed brain—­“Come, Lord Jesus!”

The little band were standing nearer the trees on the upper side of the open.  They seemed to be praying.  Sophia came to the end of the straggling line they formed, and there halted, doubtful.  She did not advance to claim her sister; she was content to single out her childish figure as one of a nearer group.  She tarried, as a worshipper who, entering church at prayer-time, waits before walking forward.  Alec stood beside his unknown lady, whose servitor he felt himself to be, and looked about him with no common interest.  About thirty people were clad in white; there were a few others in ordinary clothes; but it was impossible to tell just how many of these latter were there or with what intent they had come.  A young man in dark clothes, who stood near the last comers peered at them very curiously:  Alec saw another man sitting under a tree, and gained the impression, from his attitude, that he was suffering or perplexed.  It was all paltry and pitiful outwardly, and yet, as he looked about, observing this, what he saw had no hold on his mind, which was occupied with Cameron’s words; and under their influence, the scene, and the meaning of the scene, changed as his mood changed in sympathy.

A hymn began to rise.  One woman’s voice first breathed it; other voices mingled with hers till they were all singing.  It was a simple, swaying melody in glad cadence.  The tree boughs rocked with it on the lessening wind of the summer night, till, with the cumulative force of rising feeling, it seemed to expand and soar, like incense from a swinging censer, and, high and sweet, to pass, at length through the cloudy walls of the world.  The music, the words, of this song had no more of art in them than the rhythmic cry of waves that ring on some long beach, or the regular pulsations of the blood that throbs audibly, telling our sudden joys.  Yet, natural as it was, it was far more than any other voice of nature; for in it was the human soul, that can join itself to other souls in the search for God; and so complete was the lack of form in the yearning, that this soul came forth, as it were, unclothed, the more touching because in naked beauty.