The study was dingy from force of necessity. The carpet was faded, and worn in places into positive holes; the table-spread was faded, because it had been long worn, and was cheap goods and cheap colors in the first place. Everything about him was wearing out, and the old-young minister felt that he was wearing out, too, years before his time. I do not know that it is any wonder that he frowned when he heard the knock at the side door. It was nearly Saturday noon; he had not time for loiterers, yet he must answer that knock; thus much he could save his wife. He threw down his pen, with which he had just written the half-formed sentence, "the inexorable and inscrutable decrees of God," and went to the door to admit Bud, and the umbrella.

Not much need for delay here, and yet Bud lingered. The umbrella had been set aside, and the minister had said it was no matter that it had not been brought before, and still Bud did not go. He held his hat in his hand, and worked with nervous fingers at the frayed band around it, and at last, summoning all his courage, dashed into the centre of his subject:

"If you please, sir, will you tell me where Jerusalem is?"

"Jerusalem!" repeated the minister, and he was even more astonished than Alice Ansted had been; but he looked into Bud's eager, wistful face, and saw there something, he did not understand what, which made him throw the door open wider, and say, "Come in;" and almost before he knew what he was doing, he had seated Bud in the old arm-chair by the stove, in the study, and was sitting opposite him.

You don't expect me, I hope, to describe that interview? There have been many like it, in degree, all over the world, but nothing quite so strange had ever come to this minister before. Actually a hungry soul looking for the Jerusalem above, about which he, the minister, had read that morning, with bated breath and an almost rebellious longing to be there, where "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away."

It was not difficult to show Bud the way. He was like a child who heard with wide-open wondering eyes, and for the first time, the astounding fact that the Jerusalem toward which his eyes were turned was near at hand; that there was no ocean to cross, no dangerous journey to take; it was simply to put forth the hand and accept the free gift.

I pause, pen in hand, to wonder how I can make plain to you that this is no made-up story; that Bud is a real character who lives and does his work in the world to-day. It is so natural in reading what people call fiction, to turn from the book with a little sigh, perhaps, and say: "Oh, yes; that is all very well in a book, but in real life things do not happen in this way; and there are no people so ignorant as that Bud, anyway." But some of us do not write fiction; we merely aim to present in compact form before thoughtful people, pictures of the things which are taking place all around them. Bud did live, and does live; and he was just so ignorant, and he did hear with joy the simple, wonderful story of the way to the Jerusalem of his desires, and he did plant his feet firmly on the narrow road, and walk therein.

I want to tell you what that minister did after the door had been closed on Bud for a few minutes. He walked the floor of his limited study with quick, excited steps, three times up and down, then he dropped on his knees and prayed this one sentence, "Blessed be the Lord God, who only doeth wondrous things!" Then he went out to the kitchen, and kissed his wife, and made up the fire under her wash-boiler, and filled two pails with water, and carried Johnnie away and established him in a high-chair in the study, with pencil and paper and a picture-book; and then he took the five sheets of that sermon over which he had been struggling, and tore them in two, and thrust them, decrees and all, into the stove! Not that he was done with the decrees, or that he thought less of them than before; but a miracle had just been worked in his study, and he had been permitted to be the connecting link in the wondrous chain through which ran the message to a new-born soul, and the decree which held him captive just then was that one in which the Eternal God planned to give his Son to save the world. And he was so glad that this decree was inexorable, that its inscrutability did not trouble him at all. I am glad that he made up that fire, and filled those water-pails, and, busy as he had need to be, gave some gentle attention to Johnnie. A religious uplifting which does not bubble over into whatever practical work the heart or the hands find to do, is not apt to continue.

It was on the following Sabbath that Miss Benedict found opportunity to offer to mark the verses in Bud's Bible.

"Bud," she said, stopping at the bell-rope where he tolled the bell, "if you will let me take your Bible after church—did you bring it with you? Well, if you will let me take it, I will mark some verses in it that I think will help you. Did you read a verse each day?"

"Oh, yes'm," said Bud, and there was that in his voice which made her turn and look closely at him. "I read it, and I found out the way, and I went and spoke to Him, and He took me right in, as He said He would, and there's no comfort like it, I'm sure. I don't miss little Jack's mother any more."

What did all this mean? Bud began in the middle of things, according to his wont. He forgot that Miss Benedict had heard nothing about the promised comfort in Jerusalem, nor the difficulties he had had in being shown into the right way. Yet there is something in the family language, however awkwardly used, that conveys a meaning to those of the same household.

"Bud, do you really mean that you went to Jesus Christ, and he gave you comfort?"

"I do that, ma'am," said Bud, with hearty voice and shining eyes, and he gave the bell-rope a vigorous pull. "He was right by my side all the time, the minister said, when I bothered so about crossing the ocean, and there wasn't any ocean to cross; and I've got the comfort, and I'm going to hear the singing that you told about. I didn't think I ever could, but now I know the way."

Claire turned away silently, and walked softly into church, awed. Had poor Bud really met the Lord in the way? It looked so. She need have no more regrets over those unmarked verses. But how wonderful it was! And that is just the truth, dear, half-asleep Christian; wonders are taking place all about you, and it is possible that you are merely engaged in trying to prove to yourself and others that "the age of miracles is past;" though why you should be very anxious to prove it, does not clearly appear even to yourself.

The minister, who preached that morning, was the same minister who had stood behind that desk and read his sermons to that people for seven years, though some of his hearers rubbed their eyes, and looked about them in a dazed way, and wondered if this could be so. What had happened to the man? He had not a scrap of paper before him. In the estimation of some, he did not preach. Mrs. Graves, who read sermons aloud at home on Sabbath afternoons, and was inclined to be literary, said that it was not a sermon at all—that it was just a talk. But Deacon Graves, who was not literary, replied:

"Well, if he should take to talking very often, we should all have to wake up and look after our living, for it pretty nigh upset everything we have done this good while, and I must say it kind of made me feel as though I should like to see something stirring somewhere."

None of them knew about the minister's uplifting, only Bud, and Bud did not know that it was an uplifting, or that the minister cared, or that the sermon had anything to do with him, or, for that matter, that it was any different from usual. Bud knew he was different, and it gave him the most intense and exquisite joy to discover that he understood nearly every word that the minister said; but this he attributed not to a change in the sermon, but because he had fairly started on his journey to the heavenly Jerusalem. It is possible that some listeners need that sort of uplifting before the sermons to which they appear to listen will ever be other than idle words.

Yes, there was one other who knew that a strange and sweet experience had come to the disheartened minister. That was his wife. She had known it ever since he came and kissed her, and made up that fire, and filled those pails. The kiss would have been very precious to her without the other, but the human heart is such a strange bit of mechanism, that I shall have to confess to you, that in the light of that new-made fire, the tenderness glowed all day.

And now the preparations for the concert went on with rapid strides. The Ansteds slipped into the programme almost before they realized it, and were committed to this and that chorus and solo, and planned and rearranged and advised with an energy that surprised themselves.

It has been intimated to you that opportunities for enjoying good music were rare at South Plains.

What musical talent they possessed had lain dormant, and the place was too small to attract concert singers, so an invitation to a musical entertainment came to the people with all the charm of novelty. Of course, the girls took care that the invitations should be numerous and cordial. In fact, for three weeks before the eventful evening, almost the sole topic of conversation, even in the corner grocery, had been the young folks' concert and the preparations that were making.

Still, after taking all these things into consideration, both the girls and their leader were amazed, when at last the hour arrived, to discover that every available inch of room in the stuffy little church was taken.

"For once in its life it is full!" announced Anna Graves, peeping out, and then dodging hastily back. "Girls, it is full to actual suffocation, I should think; and they have come to hear us sing. Think of it!"

Well, whether those girls astonished themselves or not, they certainly did their fathers and mothers. Indeed, I am not sure that their young teacher did not feel an emotion of surprise over the fact that they acquitted themselves so well. Their voices, when not strained in attempting music too difficult for them, had been found capable of much more cultivation than she had at first supposed, and she had done her best for them, without realizing until now how much that "best" was accomplishing. It was really such a success, and, withal, such a surprise, that some of the time it was hard to keep back the happy tears. It is true there was one element in the entertainment which the teacher did not give its proper amount of credit. The fact is, she had so long been accustomed to her own voice as to have forgotten that to strangers it was wonderful. I suppose that really part of the charm of her singing lay in the simplicity of the singer. Her life had been spent in a city, where she came in daily contact with grand and highly cultivated voices, and she, therefore, gauged her own as simply one among many, and a bird could hardly have appeared less conscious of his powers than did she.

Not so her audience. They thundered their delight until again and again she was obliged to appear, and each time she sang a simple little song or hymn, suited to the musical capacities of the audience, so that she but increased their desire for more.

It was all delightful. Yet really, sordid beings that they were, I shall have to admit that the crowning delight was when they met the next morning, tired, but happy, and counted over their gains, and looked in each other's faces, and exclaimed, and laughed, and actually cried a little over the pecuniary result.

"Girls," said Miss Benedict, her eyes glowing with delight, "we can carpet the entire aisles. Think of that!"

Then began work.

"Since we haven't been doing anything for the last two months," said Mary Burton, with a merry laugh, "I suppose we can have the privilege of going to work now."

Meantime, the days had been moving steadily on. Christmas holidays had come and gone, and the boys, as well as the girls, to whom the holiday season had been apt to be a time of special dissipation and temptation, had been tided safely over it by reason of being so busy that they had no time for their usual festivities. The vacation to which Claire Benedict had looked forward with sad heart, on her first coming to South Plains, because it would be a time when she might honorably go home if she could afford it, and she knew she could not, had come and passed, and had found her in such a whirl of work, so absorbed from morning until night, as to have time only for postals for the mother and sister.

"When the rush of work is over," so she wrote, "I will stop for repairs, and take time to write some respectably lengthy letters, but just now we are so overwhelmed with our desire to get the church ready for Easter Sunday that we can think of nothing else. Mamma, I do wish you and Dora could see it now, and again after it emerges from under our hands!"

"What is the matter with her?" asked Dora, and then mother and daughter laughed. It was impossible to be very dreary with those breezy postals constantly coming from Claire. It was impossible not to have an almost absorbing interest in the church at South Plains, and think of, and plan for it accordingly.

"Mamma," Dora said, after having read the latest postal, as she sat bending it into various graceful shapes, "I suppose that church down on the beach that the girls of our society are working for, looks something like the one at South Plains. I think I will join that society after all; I suppose I ought to be doing something, since Claire has taken up the repairing of old churches for a life-business."

This last with a little laugh, and the mother wrote to Claire a few days later:

"Your sister has finally succeeded in overcoming her dislike to joining the benevolent society again, and is becoming interested in their work. They have taken up that seaside church again which you were going to do such nice things for, you know. Dora has felt all the time that there was nothing for her to do now, because we are poor, and has held aloof, but yesterday she joined the girls, and brought home aprons to make for the ready-made department of Mr. Stevenson's store. The plan is that Mr. Stevenson shall furnish shades for the church windows at cost, and the girls are to pay him by making up aprons for that department. I am glad for anything that rouses Dora; not that she is bitter, but she is sad, and feels herself useless. My dear, you are doing more than repairing the church at South Plains; you are reaching, you see, away out to the seaside."