The Man of the Desert

by Grace Livingston Hill

"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

The Peace of that Invisible Presence descended upon him in full measure, and when he awoke he found himself repeating: "The peace which passeth understanding!" and realizing that for the first time he knew what the words meant.

Some time he lay quietly like a child who had been comforted and cared for, wondering at the burden which had been lifted, glorying in the peace that had come in its place; rejoicing in the Presence that he felt would be with him always, and make it possible for him to bear the loneliness.

At last he turned his head to see if Billy were far away, and was startled to see the shadow of the rock, under which he lay, spread out upon the sand before him, the semblance of a perfect mighty cross. For so the jutting uneven arms of the rock and the position of the sun arranged the shadows before him. "The shadow of a great rock in a weary land." The words came to his memory, and it seemed to be his mother's voice repeating them as she used to do on Sabbath evenings when they sat together in the twilight before his bedtime. A weary land! It was a weary land now, and his soul had been parched with the heat and loneliness. He had needed the rock as he had never needed it before, and the Rock, Christ Jesus, had become a rest and a peace to his soul. But there it lay spread out upon the sand beside him, and it was the way of the cross; the Christ way was always the way of the cross. But what was the song they sang at that great meeting he attended in New York? "The way of the cross leads home." Ah, that was it. Some day it would lead him home, but now it was the way of the cross and he must take it with courage, and always with that unseen but close Companion who had promised to be with him even to the end of the world.

Well, he would rise up at once, strong in that blessed companionship. Cheerfully he made his preparations for starting, and now he turned Billy's head a trifle to the south, for he decided to stop over night with his colleague.

When his grief and loneliness were fresh upon him it had seemed that he could not bear this visit. But since peace had come to his soul he changed his course to take in the other mission, which was really on his way, only that he had purposely avoided it.

They made him welcome, those two who had made a little bit of earthly paradise out of their desert shack; and they compelled him to stay with them and rest three days, for he was more worn with the journey and his recent pain and sorrow than he realized. They comforted him with their loving sympathy and gladdened his soul with the sight of their own joy, albeit it gave him a feeling of being set apart from them. He started in the early dawn of the day when the morning star was yet visible, and as he rode through the beryl air of the dawning hour he was uplifted from his sadness by a sense of the near presence of Christ.

He took his way slowly, purposely turning aside three times from the trail to call at the hogans of some of his parishioners; for he dreaded the home-coming as one dreads a blow that is inevitable. His mother's picture awaited him in his own room, smiling down upon his possessions with that dear look upon her face, and to look at it for the first time knowing that she was gone from earth forever was an experience from which he shrank inexpressibly. Thus he gave himself more time, knowing that it was better to go calmly, turning his mind back to his work, and doing what she would have liked him to do.

He camped that night under the sheltered ledge where he and Hazel had been, and as he lay down to sleep he repeated the psalm they had read together that night, and felt a sense of the comfort of abiding under the shadow of the Almighty.

In visions of the night he saw the girl's face once more, and she smiled upon him with that glad welcoming look, as though she had come to be with him always. She did not say anything in the dream, but just put out her hands to him with a motion of surrender.