"'Say, papa, can I go with you?' asked a little boy of his father. 'Yes, son, come on,' said the father, as he threw the axe over his shoulder and accompanied by a friend, went to the woods and felled a tree. "The little fellow said: 'Say, papa, can I go and play in the water at the lagoon?' 'Yes, but be careful and don't get into deep water; keep close to the bank.' The little fellow was playing, digging wells, picking up stones and shells and talking to himself, when pretty soon the father heard him cry, 'Hurry, papa, hurry.' "The father leaped to his feet, grabbed the axe and ran to the lagoon and saw the boy floundering in deep water, hands outstretched, a look of horror on his face as he cried, 'Hurry, papa; hurry; the alligator has got me.' The hideous amphibious monster had been hibernating and had come out, lean, lank, hungry, voracious, and seized the boy. "The father leaped into the lagoon and was just about to sink the axe through the head of the monster when he turned and swished the water with his huge tail like the screw of an ocean steamer, and the little fellow cried out: 'Hurry, papa; hurry, hurry, hur---- ' The water choked him. The blood-flecked foam told the story. The father went and got men and they plunged in and felt around and all they ever carried home to his mother was just two handfuls of crushed bones. "When I read that, for days I could not eat, for nights I could not sleep. I said, 'Oh, God, what if that had been my boy?' "There are influences worse than an alligator and they are ripping and tearing to shreds your virtue, your morality. Young men are held by intemperance, others by vice, drunkards crying to the Church, 'Hurry, faster,' and the church members sit on the bank playing cards, sit there drinking beer and reading novels. 'Hurry.' They are splitting hairs over fool things, criticizing me or somebody else, instead of trying to keep sinners out of hell, and they are crying to the Church, 'Faster! Faster! Faster!' 'Lord, is it I?' "How many will say, 'God, I want to be nearer to you than I have ever been before. I want to renew my vows. I want to get under the cross.' How many will say it? "Who'll yield his heart to Christ? Who'll take his stand for the Lord? Who'll come out clean-cut for God?" A Dream of Heaven "Some years ago, after I had been romping and playing with the children, I grew tired and lay down, and half awake and half asleep, I had a dream. "I dreamed I was in a far-off land; it was not Persia, but all the glitter and gaudy raiment were there; it was not India, although her coral strands were there; it was not Ceylon, although all the beauties of that island of paradise were there; it was not Italy, although the soft dreamy haze of the blue Italian skies shone above me. I looked for weeds and briars, thorns and thistles and brambles and found none. I saw the sun in all its regal splendor and I said to the people, 'When will the sun set and it grow dark?'