In the busy months that followed, it was becoming a habit with Mr. Lynde to refresh himself with a look into one or other of the little books he kept among his treasures. Even when most pressed by business matters, he was sure to snatch a brief moment through the day or night to glance at a verse. He did this at first because they belonged to "the maiden," he called her in his thought; that old-fashioned sweet word just fitted her, and seemed to single her out as above and beyond all others. Then the words of Thomas à Kempis charmed him; he studied that book for the quaint simplicity of its style, and wondered that he had not before discovered such a gem. And, while he thought it childish in him, he noted with not a little curiosity the text for each day in the "Daily Food." When he went a journey, it amused even himself that he always slipped the little books into some pocket, and they went along. One night at the close of a triumphant day, when he had come off victor in a difficult case, and had been congratulated and complimented until he was surfeited, he opened the small book to search out the text for that day. To one conscious of having gloried not a little in the very gratifying success of that day, it was almost startling to read— "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man glory in his riches. Let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." Not since he was a boy at his mother's knee, had a word of Scripture come into his heart with power such as this. He knew he had gloried in his wisdom and power; had been proud of his triumph, and proud of his spotless life and high morality, but now how it all flashed upon him in an instant, that he was weak and foolish and sinful before God. He could speak in many tongues, and understand mysteries of science, but he did not know and understand the Lord. The one thing in which it would be right to glory, he did not possess. When a boy, he had the habit of prayer, but, as he grew toward manhood, lost his faith by reading skeptical writers, so for many years he had not spoken to God until he came into possession of these two precious books, then, curiously enough, he had begun to pray one petition: "The Lord bless her and keep her." But now, when the sense of the utter worthlessness of all he attained, and God left out, was flashed upon him, he cried, "Teach me to know and understand thee," and the first answer to that prayer was to show him that he was blind and poor and in need of all things. His eye fell upon words just then which told that another soul, generations ago, had gone by the same road to find his God, for Thomas à Kempis said: