The Redemption of David Corson

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impression that he had heard a sob a

g still farther in the wilderness, had already covered several miles of their journey when their leader

striking personality than Andy McFarlane. In physique he was of gigantic proportions, his hair and beard as red as fire, his voice loud and deep, his eyes blue and p

th reason and command. His keen perceptions, his ready wit, his forcible logic and his invincible

miliar, he was still an unconscious worshiper. The woods, the hills, the rivers and the stars awo

e can so enrage a nature like his as having to retrace its steps. He could have walked a hundred miles straight forward without a feeling of fatigue or a sense of hardship; but every backward step of his journey had put him more out of temper. He reached the clearing in a towering passion and was bewildered at hearing in

epelled him by their hypocrisy; but there was something so sincere and simple in the childlike words which issued from the cabin as to quicken his soul and turn his thoughts upon the mysteries of ex

and invisible lips and ascending into the vast and illimitable spaces of air, threw wide open the gates of mystery. Hi

dreamed were quickened into life with the rapidity of the outburst of vegetation in a polar summer. Words and phrases which had hitherto seemed to him the utterances of fools or madmen, became instinct with a marvel

and a seer, and this was his new birth into his true inheritance. Those eyes which had never wept, swam

that he was capable of sustaining. With a profound sob, in which he uttered the feelings he

ould have done, he cast himself upon the bosom of the earth

There are longings and aspirations which the palpable and audible cannot satisfy. Not what he sees and touches,

ust Himself upon his attention. Instead of being compelled to s

be, its manifestations are always most vivid and violent in ignorant periods, and along the uncultivated frontiers of advancing civilization. In those rude days and regions, the victims (if one might say so) of religion expe

Under the influence of these new thoughts that had seized him with such power, he writhed in agony on the ground. A profound "conviction of sin" took possession of his soul and he felt himself to be hopelessly and forever lost.

permanent character were often wrought in the natures of those who passed through them, and when McFarlane at last emerged from this spiritual excitement he was a strangely altered man. He seemed to find himself in another and more beautiful world. Looking around him with a childlike wonder, he rose and made his way back to the cabin. He listened at the door, but heard no sound. He entered, found the room empty, and gave h

familiar with its contents, that he was able not only to communicate its matter to others, in the new and beautiful life which

assed through a marvelous transformation. From this limited sphere of influence, his fame began to extend into a larger region. He was sent for from f

faith which had departed from the Qu