"I looked for my text. It was gone. I turned the pages with trembling hands, but neither in the Old nor the New Testament was there a word. And I cried out in my anguish, and looked at the wordless Bible till I felt as if body and soul were parting. God, how I suffered! Earth has no suffering to compare with it."
"Then, Ian?"
"Then I looked up at the congregation, and was going to tell them the Bible had faded away, but I saw the people were a moving dark mass, in a rapidly vanishing light; and I tried to find the pulpit stairs, but could not, for I was in black darkness. And I was not alone; to the right and the left there were movements and whispers and a sense of Presence about me. Powers unutterable and unseen that must have come out of inevitable hell. The whole earth appeared to be awake and aware, and the Name, the Name I wanted to call upon I could not remember. The effort to do so was a tasting of death."
He covered his face and was silent, and Mrs. Caird took his cold hand and said softly, "O Lord, Thou Lover of souls! Thou sparest all, for they are Thine."
"At last the Name came into my heart, Jessy, and though I but whispered the Word, its power filled the whole place, and the Evil Ones were overcome—not with strength nor force of celestial arms, but with that One Word they were driven away; and I awakened and it was just daylight, and I was so wet with the sweat of terror that I might have been in the Clyde all night. Was this a dream, Jessy?"
"Yes."
"What does it mean?"
"You know best. A God-sent dream brings its meaning with it. It is not a dream unless it does so. You know, Ian. Why ask me?"
"Yes, I know."
About this experience Mrs. Caird would not converse, for she was not willing to talk away the influence of Ian's spiritual visitation. She was quite sure that he understood the message sent him, and equally sure that he would implicitly obey it. So she left him alone, though she heard him destroying papers all day long. The next day being Saturday, he was very quiet, and she told herself he was preparing his sermon, and then with a trembling heart she began to speculate as to its burden. She feared that in some way his dream would come into relation or comment, and she could not bear the idea of such a public confidence.