“If you could lay hands upon the book of sermons written by Brother Peter Cummins, which his wife had printed, I'm thinking it would serve, next to God's own blessed word, to put you in the right way. It's been a great helping to me, Alfred Stevens, that same book of sermons; and, I reckon it's because it's so good a book that it's not printed now. I don't see it much about. But I'll get you one if I can, and bring or send it to you, soon enough to help you to the wisdom that you're a seeking after. If it only wakes the spirit in you as it did in me--if it only stirs you up with the spirit of divine love--you'll find it easy enough to understand the teachings of the holy volume. All things become clear in that blessed light. By its help you read, and by its working you inwardly digest all the needful learning. The Lord be with you, Alfred Stevens, and bring to perfect ripening your present undertaking.” “Amen!” was the solemn response of the hypocrite, but we need not say what an irreverent and unholy thought lay at the bottom of his mind in making this ejaculation. Before the departure of John Cross, the latter had made terms with Squire Hinkley for the board and lodging of Brother Stevens and his horse. Hinkley would have preferred taking nothing, considering the praiseworthy purpose of the supposed theological student; but Stevens shrunk from receiving such an obligation with a feeling of pride, which yet had no scruples at practising so wretched an imposture. He insisted upon making compensation, or upon leaving the house; and, not to incur this risk, Hinkley consented to receive a weekly sum in payment; but the charge was considerably smaller, as we may suppose, than it would have been had the lodger simply appeared as an inoffensive traveller, practising no fraud and making no professions of religion. Having effected all these arrangements, to his own satisfaction and seemingly that of all others, John Cross departed once more into the wilderness on his single-hearted ministry of love. A sturdy and an honest worker was he in the tabernacle, with a right mind if not a very wise one; and doing more good in his generation, and after the fashion of his strength, than is often permitted to the stall-fed doctors of his vocation.