The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-09-27

slept. He flied high the crown cfthorns, and followed Paul so Macedonia He went on to Rome, and passed from thence into the history of the church and his attitude grew gladasorial and his tone polemic as he charged against the doubt of the present, spurned all research that leads to questioning, and smose with harsh zeal the antagonism tha, does not pretend to declare because 1t humbly coniesses that it does not know. He wss, as have said, young man, and in the zeal of the preacher he forro, the saoedness of the place into which he had come.
 The other vas silent. He sal with his head bent forward upon his breast. His arms hung listless upon the arms of his chair. His eyes were fixed on the fire. For a good share of the time he had not heard at all. Some things that he had heard, seemed hard and unkind just then, and he wished they had not been said. One shaft so hurt him al last that he cried out:
 My friend" he said gently. you do not understand. am not an in6del. l am not even an avowed disbeliever. Ido not knov-that is all. l would give you every acre and every dollar, and every day of lie that posses, could 1t bring me the faith that seems % easy 10 some. l want to see as you see. l want to lie down at night believing that each dawn will draw me closer to time when we shall be together as we've were-a week .go. But the way is hedged ia. cannot reach out and take hold on anything. do not believe, and no mere argument can change me-not that am stubborn. but because the faith will not come merely because ask it or you give it bidding"
 "l am sorry, brother, that you are in this frame Of mind. It is sad-nay. ii is sinful. You should forsake it. You should strive unceasinely. You see now through glass darkly. You should lay hold on things not seen. You do not know what this may lead to-"
 The man sprang from his chair and paced the room. "Lead to ? and there was desperate ring in his voice God only knows where it does not lead to. say to you that you need seek in no lower world for hell of torment. ltis deep in the soul of a man who cannot believe. It is in a heart from which the hope ol immortality has been burned by the slow tortures of doubt. could face all the fires of which Calvin taught and Edwards preached, and brave them to the grave itself, rather than face the cold, blank wall that holds us to silence and nothing ness. Take out of the soul the inspira- ton for another life, and you shrivel it up as a parchment that has gone through flame. But does the ackno wledgment oi all this give me the faith! Because say these things, does it follow that shall believe! Because wake with tears for the dream tha, IS gone, shall it become any more reality. No, sir tell you the dead are dead. They are dead for ever. Don't thy to teach me what this doubt does for a man. l know all that. It comes n. and 1t stays. You cannot trample it out. You cannot fight it with fire You cannot kill it with words. l, eats and grows, and at last it kills-for tell you it can kill. IL tells man that he gets his rewards and punishments here. That his dead mother is now a myth, a shadow and that the heart that beat for him through so many years is only dust and ashes. That his fathers soul canno, keep ward over him. That no though, or prayer of his can reach or touch the heart of his wife forever, after she shall have left her last kiss on his lips and been lost in the tomb. It tells him that he who dies for his country. gets no reward, save the cold marble over him. It takes pa triotism out of the catalogue of virtues It lays man level with the stones and the beasts of the field. It destroys the fairest dreams of youth, and makes this universe vast field filled with whirling clods ot earth. It robs death of some terrors, but gives it one worse than them all-the terror of extinction, of oblivion, of being plotted ou: as candle flame is blown in the storm. say all this !: and because say it and have measured it in my soul in these many desperate years of thought and protest, l know that i, IS true, and that man holds only by thread of hope over a dangerous sea. You might talk to me until the night pales into day, bu, until you can give me proof deeper than words, you can apply no consolation to my heart You are a good man, and l thank you, but you do not understand. y
 No, he could not. But his heart was touched, and he dropped the mantle of his calling, and became a mere man. His hold on the heart of his friend grew none the less thereby. He said: ~Can pTay?" and into his petition he put a new iervor, and real heart that he had not shown before. His sympathy touched the hard heart of the other, even though it could not reach the iron and the flint therein. Before he rose there were tears in his eyes and voice, and his words fell to whisper as he left the man and his sorrow on the altar of his and nss mothers faith.
 '-I am not snllen and sesentful,n said the other. as they stood hand in hand by the door. "f make DO passionate ouscry against some nigh power that has reached out and taken my treasure from me. l do not wish you to carry away the thought