A busy life, not one moment idle; but the man grows strong in it,--a
healthy servant, doing a healthy work. The patients are glad when he
comes to their ward in turn. How the windows open, and the fresh air
comes in! how the lazy nurses find a masterful will over them! how full
of innermost life he is! how real his God seems to him!

He looks from the window now, his thought having time to close upon
himself. He holds up his busy, solitary life to God, with a happy smile.
He goes back to that bitter past, shrinking; but he knows its meaning
now. As the warm evening wanes into coolness and gray, the one unspoken
pain of his life comes back, and whitens his cheerful face. There is
blood on his hands. He sees the old man's gray hairs blown again by the
wind, sees him stagger and fall. Gaunt covers his bony face with his
hands, but he cannot shut it out. Yet he is learning to look back on
even that with healthy, hopeful eyes. He reads over again each day the
misspelled words in the Bible,--thinking that the old man's haggard face
looks down on him with the old kindly, forgiving smile. What if his
blood be on his hands? He looks up now through the gathering night, into
the land where spirits wait for us, as one who meets a friend's face,
saying,--

"Let it be true what you have writ,--'The _Lord_ be between me and
thee,' forever!"



EUPHORION.
"I will not longer
Earth-bound linger:
Loosen your hold on