knowledge, going away satisfied.  There were other professors, some of them brilliant in the extreme, whose whole attitude toward the Bible and Christ seemed to have an undertone of flippancy, and who fairly delighted to find an unauthentic portion over which they might haggle away the precious hours of the class-room.  They lacked the reverent attitude toward their subject which only could save the higher criticism from being destructive rather than constructive.

As the year went by he came to know his fellow-students better, and to find among them a few earnest, thoroughly consecrated fellows, most of them plain men like Burns, who had turned aside from the world’s allurements to prepare themselves to carry the gospel to those who were in need.  Most of them were poor men also, and of humble birth, with a rare one now and then of brains and family and wealth, like Courtland, to whom God had come in some peculiar way.  These were a group apart from others, whom the rest respected and admired, yet laughed at in a gentle, humoring sort of way, as if they wasted more energy on their calling than there was any real need to do.  Some of them were going to foreign lands when they were through, had already been assigned to their mission stations, and were planning with a special view to the needs of the locality.  Courtland felt an idler and drone among them that he did not yet know what he was to do.

The men, as they came to know him better, predicted great things for him:  wealthy churches falling at his feet, brilliant openings at his disposal; but Courtland took no part in any such discussions.  He had the attitude of heart that he was to be guided, when he was through his studies, into the place where he was most needed; it mattered not where so it was the place God would have him to be.

In February Burns had a farewell service in his church.  He had resigned his pastorate and was going to China.  Pat and Courtland went down to the city to attend the service; and Monday saw him off to San Francisco for his sea voyage to China.

Courtland, as he stood on the platform watching the train move away with his friend, wished he could be on that train going with Burns to China.  He was to take up Burns’s work around the settlement and in the factory section; to see some of his friend’s plans through to completion.  He was almost sorry he had promised.  He felt utterly inadequate to the necessity!

Spring came, and with it the formal announcement of Tennelly’s and Gila’s engagement.  Courtland and Pat each read it in the papers, but said nothing of it to each other.  Courtland worked the harder these days.

He tried to plunge into the work and forget self, and to a certain extent was successful.  He found plenty of distress and sorrow to stand in contrast with his own; and his hands and heart were presently full to overflowing.

Like the faithful fellow-worker that he was, Pat stuck by him.  Both looked forward to the week that Tennelly had promised to spend with them.  But instead of Tennelly came a letter.  Gila’s plans interfered and he could not come.  He wrote joyously that he was sorry, but he couldn’t possibly make it.  It shone between every line that Tennelly was overwhelmingly happy.