Produced by Paul Ereaut, Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net Illustration: Tom was fronting the firebrand Dabney like a man. THE QUICKENING By FRANCIS LYNDE Author of The Grafters, The Master of Appleby, etc., etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY E.M. ASHE INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright 1906 Francis Lynde March PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N.Y. To My Mother CHAPTER PAGE I Bethesda 1 II The Cedars of Lebanon 11 III Of the Fathers Upon the Children 21 IV The Newer Exodus 25 V The Dabneys of Deer Trace 32 VI Blue Blood and Red 44 VII The Prayer of the Righteous 57 VIII The Backslider 65 IX The Race to the Swift 75 X The Shadow of the Rock 90 XI The Trumpet-Call 99 XII The Iron in the Forge Fire 107 XIII A Sister of Charity 116 XIV On Jordan's Bank 124 XV Noel 140 XVI The Bubble, Reputation 145 XVII Absalom, My Son! 160 XVIII The Awakening 172 XIX Issachar 188 XX Dry Wells 201 XXI Gilgal 216 XXII Love 226 XXIII Tarred Ropes 242 XXIV The Under-Depths 255 XXV The Plow in the Furrow 265 XXVI As With a Mantle 279 XXVII Swept and Garnished 294 XXVIII The Burden of Habakkuk 306 XXIX As Brutes That Perish 319 XXX Through a Glass Darkly 331 XXXI The Net of the Fowler 338 XXXII Whoso Diggeth a Pit 347 XXXIII The Wine-Press of Wrath 357 XXXIV The Smoke of the Furnace 366 XXXV A Soul in Shackles 378 XXXVI Free Among the Dead 387 XXXVII Whose Yesterdays Look Backward 399 THE QUICKENING I BETHESDA The revival in Paradise Valley, conducted by the Reverend Silas Crafts, of South Tredegar, was in the middle of its second week, and the field--to use Brother Crafts' own word--was white to the harvest.