98 I GO A-FISHING. 



on two. But this talk is verging on politics. What are 

 you reading there, John ?" 



STEENBURGER. " An old hymn - book. You have a 

 queer lot of books lying around here." 



THE DOCTOR. " An old hymn is a great thing. What 

 voices have sung it ! An old hymn-book is suggestive 

 what emotion it bears record of! I very often find rest 

 in reading old hymns. It is only once in a great while 

 that I have a sensation. I've almost outgrown sensa- 

 tions. When I was fifty years old I thought it over, and 

 concluded that I had worn out the sensational possibili- 

 ties of my soul. But an old hymn to an old tune con- 

 vinced me I was mistaken. One evening last winter in 

 London I was passing a church in some street when I 

 heard a strain of familiar music, and I stopped shorty just 

 in time to catch the last words of a verse in the hymn 

 they were singing. W r hy, Philip, they speak of the war- 

 horse starting at the sound of the trumpet. So my old 

 heart started at the sound of that hymn and music." 



MYSELF. " I understand you. Once I was walking 

 listlessly of a Sunday afternoon through the narrow 

 streets of Cairo, the heart of the Orient to this day as in 

 the days of the Caliphs. I came accidentally near the 

 house where some missionaries reside, and where they 

 and their families were holding service. Out on the 

 strange atmosphere of the old city, whose every stone 

 and lattice and whose very sky were mysterious, old, and 

 incomprehensible, floated with perfect distinctness the 

 words of an old hymn. In an instant I was carried 

 away to the church in the up-country village, and I leaned 

 against the wall of a house, and thought and thought and 

 thought, till the misty condition of my eyes reminded me 

 where I was. And that wasn't half so powerful a sensa- 



