yielded, though the opportunity was favorable for moving unobserved, as the woman in front of her was preparing to go and was shaking hands with her neighbor.  She had indeed risen from her seat when a little girl came in behind her and whispered, loud enough for Dada’s keen ears to catch the words:  “Come mother, come home at once.  He has opened his eyes and called for you.  The physician says all danger is over.”

The mother in her turn whispered to her friend in glad haste:  “All is well!” and hurried away with the girl.  The friend she had left raised her hands and eyes in thanksgiving, and Dada, too, smiled in sympathy and pleasure.  Had the God of the Christian heard her prayer with theirs.

Meanwhile the preacher had ended his preliminary prayer and began to explain to his hearers that he had bidden them to the church in order to warn them against foolish terrors, and to lead them into the frame of mind in which the true Christian ought to live in these momentous times of disturbance.  He wished to point out to his brethren and sisters in the Lord what was to be feared from the idols and their overthrow, what the world really owed to the heathen, and what he expected from his fellow-believers when the splendid and imminent triumph of the Church should be achieved.

“Let us look back a little, my beloved,” he said, after this brief introduction.  “You have all heard of the great Alexander, to whom this noble city owes its existence and its name.  He was a mighty instrument in the hand of the Lord, for he carried the tongue and the wisdom of the Greeks throughout all lands, so that, in the fulness of time, the doctrine which should proceed from the only Son of God might be understood by all nations and go home to all hearts.  In those days every people had its own idols by hundreds, and in every tongue on earth men put up their prayers to the supreme Power which makes itself felt wherever mortal creatures dwell.  Here, by the Nile, after Alexander’s death, reigned the Ptolemies; and the Egyptian citizens of Alexandria prayed to other gods than their Greek neighbors, so that they could never unite in worshipping their divinities; but Philadelphus, the second Ptolemy, a very wise man, gave them a god in common.  In consequence of a vision seen in a dream he had the divinity brought from Sinope, on the shores of Pontus, to this town.  This idol was Serapis, and he was raised to the throne of divinity here, not by Heaven, but by a shrewd and prudent man; a grand temple was built for him, which is to this day one of the wonders of the world, and a statue of him was made, as beautiful as any image ever formed by the hand of man.  You have seen and know them both, and you know too, how, before the gospel was preached in Alexandria, crowds of all classes, excepting the Jews, thronged the Serapeum.

“A dim perception of the sublime teaching of the Lord by whom God has redeemed the world had dawned, even before His appearance on earth, on the spirit of the best of the heathen, and in the hearts of those wise men who—­though not born into the state of grace—­sought and strove after the truth, after inward purity, and an apprehension of the Almighty.  The Lord chose them out to prepare the hearts of mankind for the good tidings, and make them fit to receive the gospel when the Star should rise over Bethlehem.