150 PASTORAL DAYS. 



Life's book is full of shadowed pages such as this ; and it were well 

 if in the midst of our contented homes, around our cheerful fires, we 

 stopped to think and give a silent, heart-felt prayer for those who, by 

 some strange, inexplicable fatality, seem doomed to walk with cruel bur- 

 dens and with bleeding feet the path of life : no helping hand, no friend, 

 no hope, no God. 



What a terrible night ! Hark how the wind moans, like a long wail 

 from some despairing soul shut out in the awful storm ! The air is filled 

 with dense clouds of flying snow and sleet chased along by the gale. 

 The trees bend and writhe, and, as if in fear, scratch their boughs upon 

 the roof ; the driving flakes beat with an angry, hissing sound upon the 

 window-panes, and for a moment there is a muffled, ominous silence. 

 Now comes a wild and furious gust, and a great white whirlwind sweeps 

 with serpentine contortions past the window and disappears in the thick 

 darkness of the night. Our very walls sway and tremble to their foun- 

 dation. The clap-boards snap, and some loosened blind is torn from its 

 hinges and hurled as a feather before the raging wind. We hear a crash 

 of breaking glass, the shaking of the old barn doors, and now a fright- 

 ened neigh, half smothered in the storm. 



Who would venture out in such a night as this ? We shudder at 

 the thought, and yet there is one whose holy sense of duty will see no 

 barrier even in this fierce tempest. Even now he is urging his faithful 

 horse onward through the lonely road, cold and benumbed, but thinking 

 only of the suffering he hopes to relieve. 



How well I remember the welcome stamping at the front door, the 

 chinking rattle of the tin box sounding nearer and nearer up the stairs, 

 the tall and stately figure entering the room, clad in great-coat reaching 

 nearly to the floor, the genial smile bringing both hope and comfort with 

 its very presence! And what a noble face! the shapely forehead, the 

 snowy tufts of close-cut hair, the magnetic, penetrating eyes, so deep and 

 dark, looking out from beneath the heavy jet-black brows, and the clean- 

 shaven cheeks and chin, of almost child-like bloom, relieved against the 

 whiteness of the stock about the throat ! Never before were winter and 

 summer so strangely and beautifully blended in a human face. But we 

 shall see that face no more. Physician, friend, companion, all were laid 

 away with him, and sad indeed was the day that bore him from us. 

 And now, as I look down upon that humble grave, I would that others, 

 with the reverence I feel, might read the sacred epitaph inscribed upon 



