They went home after that—­Dr. Selmser and his wife—­to her mother’s home.  So many people have her mother’s home to go to.  Blessed mothers!  He was so glad to get to her.  He needed change and rest, and the letter-writers had spoken truthfully.  Did he take cold in packing and travelling?  Was he overworked?  Were the seeds of the disease running riot in his system during that early fall?  Were they helped along any by that letter?  Who shall tell?  We know this much:  he took to his bed, and he was no longer pale or quiet; the flush of fever and the unrest of delirium were upon him.  He rolled and tossed and muttered; and it was always of his work, of his cares, of his responsibilities—­never of rest; and yet rest was coming to him on swift wing.  The Lord of the vineyard knoweth when his reapers have need of soft, cool days of glory, to follow weeks of service.  Rapidly they come to him; but the river must be crossed first, and first there must be a severing of earth-ties, a breaking of cords stronger than life.  Never mind, the King knows about this, too; and it must be, and is, and shall be, well.  The rest came—­all that we on this side knew of it—­a pulseless heart, a shrouded form, lips of ice, forehead of snow, hush and silence.  Just the other side of the filmy veil which we call “Time,” what was the appearance of it there?  He knows, and has known these many years.  And, thank God, the wife of his love knows now, but we do not.  “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart, the things that are prepared” for them.

What said the elegant modern church, that during the process of this change was undergoing a candidating siege?  Why, they met in decorous assemblage, and passed resolutions, and had them printed, and draped the pulpit in mourning, and sent a delegation of the church to the funeral, with knots of the finest crepe streaming from their shoulders; and, on the Sabbath following, the quartette choir sang the funeral dirge in such a way as to melt almost the entire audience to tears.  And then they went home, some of them, and remarked that the candidate who occupied their pulpit that morning had an exceedingly awkward way of managing his handkerchief, and didn’t give out notices well.  They didn’t believe he would “draw” the “young people.”

Now, what of all this story of one Sabbath day?  Is it overdrawn?  Do you say there are no such people as have been described?  I beg your pardon, there are.  It is not a story; it is a truthful repetition of Sabbath conversations.  Would that such Sabbath desecrations were rare.  They are not.  You will remember that out of a congregation of five hundred I have not given you a description of a dozen people.  The difficulty is that a dozen people can and do set in commotion large bodies of humanity, and bring about results of which they themselves do not dream.