St. Cuthbert's

"If you don't get the call you needn't come back here," said my wife to me as I stood upon the door-sill, bag in hand, and my hard-bought ticket in my pocket.

His claim seemed loftier far than any obligation between my heart and man, and so uplifted was I by the sense of a commission which even candidature could neither invalidate nor...

"Let us forget the things which are behind," he said, "if we only can," and there was a wealth of agony in his words, "and let us press forth unto those things which are before....

I advanced and took his hand; for that is an easy masonry, and its exercise need never be regretted even if it never be repeated. My wife once spent a plaintive day because she...

For argument, to my mind, satisfies a people's souls as well as a bill of fare will suffice a hungry man; but the heart's food is a different matter. Argument may be botany, but...

It was at such a time as this that Angus first impressed us with his real power. We had seen much of him in the years that had passed since he spent his first New Jedboro night...

His was a conservatism of the intense and passionate sort; not the choice of his judgment, but the deepest element of his life. He no more chose old ways, old paths, or the spir...

"Forgie me--forgie me! It's no' me she'll hae till forgie. Are ye no' the minister o' St. Cuthbert's? Ah, ye canna deny that. I ken that fine. I kent ye as sune as ye cam' slipp...

Fearsome to behold was the awestruck face which Donald turned to mine, and full of questioning dread, I doubt not, were the eyes that met his own. Was this the doing of the Lord...

"But about his answer to my question. Surely no maiden yet had so strange an answer. For, without a word, he went to the desk and took the Bible in his hands. When he had found...

"There is no more fitting prayer for such an hour as this," I responded, thinking it meet to incline his thoughts towards the encircling glow with which the last great morning w...

"That was in the gloaming, Angus, you remember. And the darkness has often brooded over it since then--but it is all past now and it never was so bright before."

It is true that the Vardell family coat-of-arms was not concealed--but it was not brandished or expounded. In quiet but vigilant emblazonry, it seemed to stand apart, like some...

William, as chairman, was the first to speak. He presented St. Cuthbert's case with dignity and force, beginning with the tidings that the Board wished me henceforth to take two...

This was almost a sorer wound to us than the other; for we somehow could not but construe it as the collapse of shame. He shirks the discipline of God, we said, or thought; and...

"Aye," responded the other, "this is the fast day. Sabbath's the sacrament, ye ken, and they're maist awfu' strict aboot the fast day. They wadna work that day, nae mair than on...

He leads her to his old-time pew, and she takes the place that is henceforth to be her own. The singing has stopped, save those silent strains with which God is well pleased, th...