The carnal man never dies in us, nor the carnal woman, either, for that matter. We only say so in our prayers and rituals because we do not know yet how to be spiritually truthful about our own flesh and blood. But God, who knew very well what He was about when He made us carnal, sees to it that in spite of our egregious pretensions we remain honest Adams and Adamesses to the end. So, for years, without acknowledging it to myself, I had been homesick for the world and the things of the world. I did not want to "sin," I simply longed to be natural; to live a trifle less perpendicularly in my soul. There had been so many prayer-meeting nights when I would rather have been at the grand opera. Not that William's prayer-meeting talks were not the very bread of life--they were; but there is such a thing as losing one's appetite for just one kind of bread. I have always thought one of the notable things about the Israelites' journey through the wilderness was the amazing fortitude with which they accepted their manna diet. Anyhow, it is not in the power of words to tell how I pined for the real laughter and lightness and play of life. William had needed them no less, but the difference was he never knew it. When he felt world-hungry he thought it was a sign of spiritual anaemia and prayed for a closer walk with God--as if God was not also the God of the world even more than He is the caste Deity of any church or creed. I am not reflecting on William in saying this--I'd sooner reflect upon one of the Crown Jewels of Heaven, but I am reflecting upon his understanding. It was not sufficiently earthly--no good priest's is. Still, I had been his faithful wife for thirty years and a consistent member of a church which forbids nearly every form of amusement that cannot be taken at a Sunday-school picnic, a church festival or at an Epworth League convention. I did not wait to speak to the people after the sermon, the way a preacher's wife must do to show her friendliness and interest. I hurried out and around behind the church to where he lay folded deep beneath the pine shadows. And there I had it out with him, as sometimes we had it out together in other days, I doing all the talking, and he no less silent than usual there in his holy grave. We had never quarreled as man and wife, because he would not do his part of the contending. I untied my bonnet strings, took it off and laid it on the grass, sat down by his headstone and cried--not so much for him as for fear he would not understand. He never had. [Illustration: Not So Much for Him as for Fear He Would Not Understand.]