He had walked ever since in a new atmosphere; he had risen to the glory of the possibilities of his life; he had heard Dorothy say—she had said it that very morning, when he met her early, out in the back kitchen woodshed, where the kindlings were kept—that he had shown her the way to Jesus, and now she had found rest in him. Was a man ever to forget the sweetness of words like that?—a Christian, honoured of God in showing another soul the entrance-way! Shall he sink to the level of common things after that, and forget that he has a right to work with God, on work that will last to all eternity? Lewis Morgan, Christian man though he had been for years, had never heard those words before; but do you think that something of the honour which he had lost, and something of the shame of having tamely lost such honours, did not sweep over him? Surely it should not be the last time that he should hear such words—at least it should be through no fault of his if it were.
Low motive, do you say? I am not sure of that. There is a higher one, it is true; and every Christian who can feel the lower will, sooner or later, grasp the higher. But since God has called us to honourable positions, even to be "co-labourers," shall we not rejoice in the honour?
Well, Lewis Morgan had worked all day in the light of this new experience. He thirsted for more of it; he felt roused to his very finger-tips; he longed to be doing; he had taught that class of girls put into his care as he had not supposed that he could teach. Now he walked up and down their room, while the Sabbath twilight gathered, thinking.
Louise, who had been reading to him, kept silence, and wondered what was the question which he was evidently deciding. She knew his face so well, that she felt sure there was being made a decision. At last he came to her side.
"Louise, I believe in my soul that we ought to go downstairs and try to have prayers with the family. Father might object to it; he thinks all these things are a species of cant, and I have been especially anxious to avoid anything that looked in the least like it. I have been too much afraid of what he would think. I believe I ought to try. What do you say?"
Of course he knew just what she would say, and she said it. Soon after that they went downstairs. Lewis possessed one trait worthy of imitation; when he had fairly determined on a course, he went straight toward it with as little delay as possible. So, directly they were seated in the clean and orderly kitchen, Nellie cuddled in Louise's lap—a spot which was growing to be her refuge—Lewis commenced,—
"Father, we have been thinking that perhaps you would have no objection to our having family worship together downstairs. We would like it very much, if it would not be unpleasant."
Mrs. Morgan seemed suddenly seized with the spirit of uncontrollable restlessness. She hopped from her chair, drew down the paper shade with a jerk, then, finding that she had made it disagreeably dark, drew it up again, set back two chairs, opened and shut the outer kitchen door, and took down a towel and hung it on another nail; then she came back to her seat. As for Father Morgan, he sat, tongs in hand, just as he had been when Lewis addressed him, and gazed unwinkingly into the glowing fire for the space of what seemed to Lewis five minutes, but, in reality, was not more than one; then he said, slowly and impressively,—
"I'm sure I have no manner of objections, if it will do you any good."
It was Dorothy who rushed into the other room, before her father's sentence was concluded, and brought therefrom Grandmother Hunt's old family Bible; and in the Morgan household, after forty years of life together, father and mother met for the first time at the family altar. Howbeit, neither father nor mother bowed the knee, but sat bolt upright in their chairs. But Dorothy knelt and prayed, and dropped some happy tears on her wooden-seated chair the while.