“Fellow-townsmen,” said he,—­he spoke hesitatingly at first as one unused to the place and the assemblage,—­“I have come here to make a request.  You are surprised to see me here.  You will be more surprised to hear my request.  I want to ask you to pray for me.”

He had recovered from his hesitancy now.  But he spoke with an unnatural rapidity as though he were afraid of breaking down altogether if he stopped a moment to reflect upon himself and his position.

“You know me only as an infidel.  I am an infidel.  At least I was.  Yes!  I suppose I still am.  My mother died when I was but a babe.  My father brought me up.  He was orthodox of the orthodox.  But oh! he was a hard man.  And he had a hard creed.  I used to think the creed made the man.  Lately I have thought perhaps the man made the creed.  At all events both were hard.  And I repudiated both.  At fourteen I abhorred my father’s creed.  At eighteen I had left my father’s roof.  I have never returned except on occasional visits.”

He had gained more self-possession now, and spoke more slowly and distinctly.  The room was as still as that room of death in which the evening before I had prayed with him, kneeling by the corpse of his little boy.

“What I have been at Wheathedge you know.  I cannot come here to-night on a false pretence.  I cannot call myself a desperate sinner.  I have wronged no man.  I have lived honestly and uprightly before you all.  I owe no man anything.  I have depended on my daily labor for my daily bread.  Out of it I have provided as I had opportunity for the poor around me.  No one ever went hungry from my door away.  My creed has been a short and simple one, ’Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.’  I have tried to live according to my creed.

“But I begin to think that my creed is not all the truth.  Mr. Laicus first led me to think so.  No! my boy first led me to think so.  I was satisfied with my creed for myself.  But I was not satisfied with it for my boy.

“Then I met Mr. Laicus.  We commenced to study the Bible together.  If he had attempted to prove my opinions wrong I would have defended them.  But he did not.  We studied the undoubted truth.  The doubtful points he left alone.  I learned there was more in the Bible, more in human life and the human heart than I had thought.  I grew little by little sure that I had not all the truth.  But I was unwilling to confess it.  I was-yes, I was too proud.

“Yesterday”—­his voice trembled and he spoke with difficulty for a moment, but quickly recovered himself—­“yesterday we lost the light and life out of our house.  No!  I am wrong.  My light was extinguished, and my life was quenched in death.  But my wife’s was not.  The dear boy was as dear to her as he was to me.  But she lives and hopes; I am in darkness and almost in despair.  My father’s hard creed drove me into infidelity.  My wife’s, my friend’s tenderer and happier faith calls me back again.  But I do not know the way.