The Calling of Dan Matthews

Miss Farwell had heard much of the new pastor of the Memorial Church. Dr. Harry frequently urged her to attend services; Deborah, when Hope had seen her was eloquent in his prai...

"And because of these things, to the keen old physician and student of life, the boy was a revelation of that best part of himself--that best part of the race."

"The Ally was there in power. The day of the rack, the thumbscrew and the stake, is long past: in place of these instruments of religious discipline we have--the Ally."

The meeting of the Ladies' Aid adjourned and its members, with sighs and exclamations of satisfaction over work well done, separated to go to their homes--where there were suppe...

Corinth was in the midst of a street fair. The neighboring city held a street fair that year, therefore Corinth. All that the city does Corinth imitates, thereby with a beautifu...

"'Deed he did, mam, 'deed he did--said I was to fetch yo' wid big Jim out dar. Tol' me to say hit was er'mergency case. I dunno what dat is, but dey sho needs yo' powerful bad o...

Or, in the more orthodox language of Elder Jordan, in an article to the official paper of the denomination, "the congregation had taken on new life, and the Lord's work was bein...

After dinner was over and they had visited awhile, the Doctor introduced Dan to his landlady across the way and, making some trivial excuse about business, left the boy in his r...

"Thus Dr. Harry presented another side of the problem to his bewildered friend--a phase of the question commonly ignored by every fiery reformer, whose particular reformation is...

"But it was a reaching out in the dark, a blind groping for something--Dan knew not exactly what: a restless but cautious feeling about for a place whereon to set his feet."

Dan, with the Doctor and Mrs. Oldham were to take supper and spend the evening at Elder Jordan's. Martha went over early in the afternoon, leaving the two men to follow.

Since that first chance meeting at the depot when he had looked into the nurse's eyes and heard her voice only for a moment, Dan had not been able to put the young woman wholly...

"And because the town of this story is what it is, there came to dwell in it a Spirit--a strange, mysterious power--playful, vicious, deadly; a Something to be at once feared an...

The following Tuesday morning Dan was at work bright and early in Denny's garden. Many of the good members of Memorial Church would have said that Dan might better have been at...

Rising early the next morning Dan looked from his window to see a stranger already at work in the garden. He was tall, raw-boned, having the figure and dress of a laborer. A few...

The Ally had been busy to some purpose. The Ladies' Aid, having reached the point of declaring that something must be done, did something. The Elders of Memorial Church, in thei...

"'With nothin' to think of all the time but the Blessed Jesus an' the Holy Mother; an' all the people so respectful, an' lookin' up to you. Sure 'tis a grand thing, Doctor, to b...

Early the next morning Dan and the old Doctor set out for Wheeler's Ford. It was the nearest point, and while the fishing was not so good as at other places they knew the spot w...

"'There is no hatred, lad, so bitter as that hatred born of a religious love; no falsehood so vile as the lie spoken in defense of truth; no wrong so harmful as the wrong commit...

The incident of Deborah's trouble brought Hope to a fuller dependence upon Dan than she had ever before known. The long ride alone in the hack, with her mind so filled with thou...

Miss Farwell was alone with her patient. Dr. Harry, who had returned soon after the girl regained consciousness, had gone out into the country, promising to look in again during...

Dan could not--or perhaps it should be written would not--understand rightly his experience at the church convention. Sadly puzzled and surprised by the spirit and atmosphere of...

Jud Hardy, who lives at Windy Cove on the river some eighteen miles "back" from Corinth, had been looking forward to Fair time for months. Not that Jud had either things to exhi...

At the church prayer meeting, that evening, Judge Strong prayed with a fervor unusual even for him, and in church circles the Elder was rated mighty in prayer. In fact the Judge...

Deborah was in the rear of the house, busily engaged with a big washing. Denny had gone up town on some errand. Much to Miss Farwell's surprise Dan did not, as usual, take the p...

"'And do you think, Grace, that anything in all this beautiful world is of greater importance--of more value to the world--than a human life, with all its marvelous power to thi...

"And, as the weeks passed, it came to be noticed that there was often in the man's eyes, and in his voice, a great sadness--the sadness of one who toils at a hopeless task; of o...

Nathaniel was greatly agitated as he faced the minister in the doorway. He moved unsteadily across the room, stumbling toward the chair Dan offered, and his hand shook so violen...

"In the little room that looked out upon the Monument and the garden, Dan--all unknowing--slept. And over all brooded the spirit that lives in Corinth--the Ally--that dread, mys...

"As he looked at the figure so immovable, so hideously rigid and fixed in the act of proclaiming an issue that belonged to a dead age, he felt as if his heart would burst with w...

In the crisis of Deborah's trouble, Hope had turned to Dan impulsively, as the one woman turns to the one man. When she was powerless in her own strength to meet the need she lo...

When Miss Farwell, under the oak tree in the Academy yard, turned her eyes from the far blue roll of hills to see Dan Matthews coming through the gap in the tumble-down fence, i...

Two or three people whom he met on the way turned when he had passed to look back at him. Mrs. James talking over the fence with her next door neighbor, wondered when he failed...

"It was not Hope Farwell's way to theorize about the causes of the wreck, or to speculate as to the value of inventions for making more efficient the life-saving service, when t...

And now this story goes back again to the mountains to end where it began: back to where the tree-clad ridges roll, like mighty green billows into the far distant sky; where the...

"'It is not for you to waste your time in useless speculation as to the unknowable source of your life-stream, or in seeking to trace it in the ocean. It is enough for you that...

Dan's farewell sermon was to be given in the evening. John Gardner, who--true to the promise he had made when he challenged the minister, after that sermon on "Fellowship of Ser...

Dan was right. Judge Strong could not afford to make public the facts connected with the young man's visit to him that evening. He could not afford it for more reasons than Dan...

When Hope Farwell dismissed Dan that afternoon in the old Academy yard, because she feared both for her lover and for herself, she had not for a moment questioned what Dan's dec...

When the first days of the spring bass-fishing came, the Doctor coaxed Dan away for a three days trip to the river, beyond Gordon's Mills, where the roaring trout-brook enters t...

Dan was trying to prepare his evening sermon for the third Sunday of what the old Doctor called his Corinthian ministry. The afternoon was half gone, when he arose from his stud...

"Now, for the first time, he was face to face with existing conditions. Not the theory but the practice confronted him now. Not the traditional, but the actual. It was, indeed,...

For an hour he roamed about, his mind upon his plans for the development of the wealth that lay in the heart of the mountain. After a time, still intent upon his work, he scramb...

"Standing in the midst of these things, so much a part of his chosen life that they seemed a vital part of himself, he heard the voices in the garden."