Never in his life had Percy so realized his own finiteness, never had he so reverenced the Supreme Majesty of the Creator, as while he listened to that voice, singing the familiar words with indescribable pathos and passion. Percy's fearless criticisms of creeds and dogmas had won for him, among people of illiberal thought, the undeserved reputation of an atheist. The world is full of good-hearted, but short-sighted people, who brand any man as an infidel or lunatic, whose ideas of divine worship differ from their own. Percy's whole nature was deeply reverential; but his conceptions of religion were too high and broad for the ordinary mind, accustomed to the well-worn ruts of thought to understand or even grasp. In his early boyhood, he had believed in every thing; church, woman, home, happiness. But one woman had wrecked him in mid-ocean; and he had thrown overboard all his old faiths in things human and divine, barely saving his life and reason. Then, as time passed on, and his hurts healed, his inborn reverence for _Something_ over and beyond himself returned. His belief in a future life was as fixed and firm as it was vague and undefined. But oftentimes he felt conscious of the near presence of his mother--the mother who had died when he was a youth and most needed her. And he _knew_ that she lived, and loved him, and watched over him. It was her occasional presence, which convinced him, beyond the possibility of doubt, that death was only the gateway to a new life. Always, when he was untrue to himself or his principles, her spirit fled away from him, and again she came so near, he could almost _hear_ the rustle of her wings. It was long months now, since she had come to him. Never in his dreams, never in his waking hours; and the sense of loneliness and longing was sometimes overwhelming. But now, while he listened to that unseen singer's voice, his mother came back to him; there, in the golden haze of that Indian-summer morning, he felt as conscious of her near presence as if his eyes beheld her. "Bread of heaven, Bread of heaven, Feed me till I want no more," sang the voice, and it seemed to ring up to the very courts of heaven with a great cry of hunger and longing. Never had Percy so felt the craving in his own soul for heavenly manna, and for something beyond and greater than himself on which to lean, as at this moment. It seemed to him, that he could not rest until he had looked upon the face of the singer. He entered the church, and sat down in an unoccupied pew near the door. The singing had ceased, and from his position the choir was entirely hidden from view by a curtain. Percy sat through the long and tedious sermon, and listened with impatience to the dreary, uncomforting discourse.