Reformation parliament, and is by far the most important that ever met in Scotland. It formally santioned that great revolution which, as a matter of fact, had been practically already accomplished, legally demolishing the fabric of the old Church and setting up the new in its place. A confession of faith was adopted, all teaching contrary to it forbidden, the papal jurisdiction abolished, and the celebration of the mass prohibited under penalty of death for a third offence. Thus ruthlessly was the old order changed. Such a clean sweep could have come so suddenly only after a long preparation. The old Church was hopelessly bad. Ignorance, superstition and the grossest immorality had eaten out her life. She had no power to resist the intellectual and spiritual weapons of men like Knox. The Protestants had been taught to regard the papal system as the great apostasy and the Antichrist of Scripture. While exegetically indefensible, the view was practically only too true. A dead church, like any other carrion, had better be buried out of sight and smell.

He

who reads the story of the Inquisition in Spain, or Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic," will find abundant reason to rejoice at the substitution, unhesitating and complete, of Protestantism for Romanism in Scotland.

But what of the intolerance of the old doctrines and worship? What of the death penalty for persistence in

attendance on the mass? Let us be thankful that such a question is not a live question now, that we have learned to live and let live, that the spirit of the New Testament rather than that of the Old, in such matters, is now recognized as the true Christian spirit. But we cannot ask of Knox and other reformers that in all points they should anticipate our larger views and gentler ways. It was hard for those who had seen George Wishart or Walter Mill burnt at the stake to be tolerant of the cruel system that had heaped the faggots and applied the torch. Indeed, gentle tolerance under the circumstances of those times would have been abused. How could Protestants be tolerant in the days of Philip of Spain, the Guises in France, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Inquisition, the Armada?

Tolerance is right now. Then it was as impossible as on the battlefield, when conflicting opinions take the form of flying bullets and crossing bayonets. As a matter of fact Knox was himself practically far more tolerant than his theory. Although he had been himself exiled, imprisoned, and condemned to death for his religion, he never instigated the death of any man for his religious opinions. And under his influence the great revolution in the affairs of his country was accomplished with remarkably little bloodshed.

CHAPTER I.

A FRIEND IN NEED.

NE mild, lovely morning in autumn a man in the garb of a sect called Friends came off the ferryboat from Hoboken to New York. He had a clean-shaved, pleasant face, was past middle age, and walked leisurely across town as if he was moved by no such a spirit of haste as urged the crowd about him. He carried a large basket on one arm, and in the other hand an enormous bunch of asters, dahlias, chrysanthemums, and other fall flowers. His gravity was undisturbed when street arabs, sniffing a vinous fragrance, held saucy noses to his big basket, but his blue eyes twinkled. On one boy, thin and lame, he bestowed a huge bunch of ripe grapes; and when a clamor began over his flowers he picked blossom after blossom from his supply. Before he reached Broadway one could trace his way by a line of bright flowers and smiling children. There the basket began to prove heavy, for the day was warm, so the man stepped on a car going up town.

The first man by whom he was jostled proved to be an acquaintance, who exclaimed: "Why, David Fenton! I have not seen you since you went out of the leather business down in the Swamp. You got rich and retired, I suppose; you Quakers do prosper when other men go to the wall."

"I retired, though I was far from being what thee would call rich. I was not well, and knew air and exercise were what I needed," replied David, helping a woman with a baby to a seat.

"Where do you live now?"

"In New Jersey; a pretty country settlement. I can reach town in half an hour; but good-day to thee. I get off at Twenty-sixth Street. It was scarcely worth while getting on; but at sixty-five one's legs can tire."

David slipped the basket off his lap again to his arm and started toward the river eastward until he could see the

gleam of the water and the passing boats. He came next to the great hospital, turned in at the gateway, smiled at the civil policeman, who knew him, and made his way to a ward where several patients claimed his attention. To the nurse in charge he delivered his fruit, but gave the flowers himself to any who cared for them.

The nurse began telling him how thoughtful he was, but he gently silenced her, saying, "I have business in town, and 'tis but little out of my way, and a pleasure."

Evidently he came often, for he asked her of several patients and listened with interest to her reports. She asked suddenly: "You live in the country, do you not ?"

I wish I knew I would not re

"We call it so, though 'tis really the ravelled-out edge of the city." "Your wife does not want a strong, good servant, I suppose? of some one who does. commend one out of a hundred of the women here for service in a good family, but this one is different. She came to the city from Maine, with (so she says) excellent references. She was ill with pneumonia in a respectable boardinghouse down town. There was no one to take proper care of her, and when she could be moved she was sent here. She had a relapse, and came near death. The day after she left the boarding-house took fire. The landlady was keeping her trunk for her, and it was burned with all her papers and clothes. She got well two months ago, but she is so sensible and hard-working we have kept her to help. She does not like the surroundings, and now wants a place to live in the country. She is peculiar, but honest as the day is long. I have offered to write to Maine for her and get new credentials, but she says she is too proud to tell that she has been in a charity hospital. It is foolish, but she says she had such fine ideas of getting ahead in the city that old friends who did not like her to come will laugh."

David had patiently waited for the loquacious little woman to conclude, then he said, "I will ask Martha Cobb, with whom I board; she may know of some

David looked, and then carried the remainder of his flowers to an old man, one to whom Dorothy was taking a bowl of broth. She was as homely a creature, in a wholesome way, as could well be imagined, having prominent light blue eyes, high cheek bones, lank dark hair cut short in her neck, and a width of smile atoned for by fine white teeth. David noted the clean calico dress she wore and the deft way she lifted the helpless man into a position where he could drink with comfort. Then she espied the flowers, and exclaimed: "Oh, Daddy Hooper! ain't them chrysanthemums as gay as a streak of sunshine? Now ye won't have the blues to-day looking at them. You will get out of here yet to pick posies for your little grandchildren. They must be mighty cute according to your story."

The old man's dull face brightened. He glanced from Dorothy to David, and mumbled through his toothless gums: "She knows how to coddle old folks, she do. She had a sick old father herself, and I'll wager she made him comfortable. I tell her she'd orter have on a pretty little cap herself and be a regular

nurse."

"Oh, wouldn't I like for to be just that," she returned, answering David's glance, "but to be a regular anything in this world takes edication, and I never had none. Our old minister down home, says he, All you've got, Dorothy Hakes, is muscle, common sense, and considerable grit.' He told me to add to them the fear of the Lord and the memory of a long line o' prayin' ancestors,' and I'd pull through somehow. At least he meant that. only he expressed eleganter."

it

"The fear of the Lord is truly the beginning of wisdom, and all things (that may mean troubles) work together for good to them that love God," said David, in his singularly pleasant voice.

"I ain't half so good as I orter be-as them ancestors, for instance. How I did wish some of them had been posterity instead of ancestors when I was fetched here to be sick; then they'd a been on hand, maybe; but I met with heaps of kindness from strangers; nobody couldn't be kinder than these nurses. Yes, indeed, I'd like to be one, but they must know more than I to begin. I can cook, scrub, wash, and iron, and then my accomplishments are all told, except

talking. Par used to say I was a master hand for gab."

David calmly studied her as she proceeded to make things tidy about old Daddy Hooper, then his eyes wandered up and down the ward. Four or five women from the other wards were cleaning the floors. They were someway different from Dorothy. He was believer enough in heredity to conclude ancestors had considerable to do with it. It being a difference in grit, common sense, and the chance of pulling through.

He asked Dorothy a few direct questions, and then said "I will ask friends to find thee a place to work outside the city. It may be I can help thee," then, to avoid thanks, he moved on to give his last flower to a boy in a cot near. His face wore a fatherly expression as he talked a while to the little fellow.

A few more errands of this sort, and David was again in the street. He took a Broadway car, this time going to Wall Street; there, for an hour or more, he attended to business, but this was ended at noon. Walking up the crowded thoroughfare, with his serene face in marked contrast to the eager, worried, tired visages of many world's people whom he met, David was asking himself, "What next?"

He had an impression there was more to be done in the city, and just then coming up by Trinity Church, he entered the yard. More than once he had received a "leading" while musing quietly in that most beautiful old place. He never went within the sanctuary to pray, but seated on some stone, green with moss, or crumbling with age, he enjoyed intensely the peace of earth, trees, blue sky and twittering birds, the softened roar of Broadway outside. To-day he spent an hour in such employment, resting, thinking, or spelling out ancient epitaphs. Suddenly he exclaimed: "Of a surety 'tis John Welles I must see! The poor boy is in a strait, I hear."

Once in the street he delayed by an old woman's fruit-stand to eat a peach and a pear; then, his simple lunch ended, he crossed to an avenue car, and again made his way uptown.

As he went he tried to recall what the details were regarding the Welles family troubles, but could not do so clearly. At a point nearest St. Mark's Place he got out of the car and walked toward Second Avenue, coming at last to a large, once elegant house, fashionably situated. It was now stranded far from the fashion and wealth that, sweeping up-town, had left it among shops, factories, and board

How glad I am My old friends

"Oh, David Fenton ! to see your face again! are all dead, or so I was just thinking ten minutes ago."

"Don't think it, Hannah Welles. See how God's sunshine is filling all space to-day. These friends of thine are somewhere in His light, just as we all are in His care."

He was by this time following her into the parlor. She pulled up a shade; then, wiping quick-coming tears from her eyes, she sat down to entertain him. She was a pretty little dried-up creature of seventy, with dainty hands and a nervous manner, but even without her silk gown and ruffle of old lace you would know she was an old-time lady.

"I heard rumors that thy brother Joseph had been troubled of late both in health and estate."

'Yes, poor brother! I must take you up to see him, but you will find him greatly changed."

"I would like thee to tell me as fully as is agreeable to thee what has come to him."

Glad of a sympathetic friend, the old lady poured into his ears the whole story, which, condensed, amounted to this: David knew that Joseph Welles had in the slow, old-fashioned way accumulated wealth. He was "close," but a man of integrity, averse to anything newfangled, kind to the poor and beloved in his family. His wife was dead, but a sister of his own had for twenty years been at the head of his home. This same little woman talking to David he knew had been a mother to Joseph's sons, John and Clarence. As the old man grew older he took into his business a younger partner-one of the sort who must make haste to be rich. Then came the old story of treachery, fraud following speculation. A bank failed, the partner fled, and now Joseph Welles was as poor as when he started in life over fifty years before. The failure was in March; in April he fell senseless from his chair, was taken to his bed, and would probably only go from there to his grave.

"Oh, no," the boys were 'everything now." Clarence had a place as cashier with a friend of his father's. John, who never took to business, and expected to devote himself to literature, John wasbut here the old lady became rather vague, and could not say what John was doing. She added incidentally that he was the support of the family now, though, no doubt, Clarence would some day be richer than his father. He (Clarence) was exceedingly ambitious, and "so smart, you know."

David smiled, remembering years back how the handsome little scapegrace managed the old lady. Fearing at last that he was to hear a repetition of facts just made plain, he asked to see his old friend. Consenting at once, Miss Welles led him from the parlor, furnished according to ideas of grandeur prevalent forty years ago, up to a large back room on the second floor, where lay the wreck of his former acute and active friend, now a querulous, forgetful old man, most rambling in his talk.

Keep up thy courage, brother," said David. "What if thy money is gone, thou art soon going too, and thy better treasure, I trust, awaits thee in heaven. If thy sons are the fine fellows I think, they can take care of themselves and be the better for it. Our fathers did not start us in life with full houses, else we might have spent their contents like fools."

The old man (who looked not unlike a mummy, with his brown, wrinkled face sunken in the pillow) nodded childishly, and then began to scold because John had not come in.

"If the fellow does nothing but scribble," he might "as well do it at home and so be at hand when he wanted him.

"He will be here soon, Joseph," said his sister. "You know he comes before four every day."

"How is your family-got any boys? Oh, I forgot," mumbled Mr. Welles. "You were going to marry pretty Nanny Miller, and she died a week before the day; so you never

The little old sister interposed with a glass of ice-water, and having drank, Mr. Welles talked of something else until David rose to go. At the foot of the long staircase he was bidding Miss Welles good-day when the door opened, letting in a flood of afternoon light, and with it John Welles.

Greeting him, David Fenton went again to the parlor for a few words, and Aunt Hannah vanished.

David was not prepared for the change a few years had made in John, although

wherein was the difference he could scarcely have told. He was a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, with a fine, clear complexion, dark hair, very good features, and a face smooth except for a dark moustache. But the charm of his personality was half in his large, brown eyes -clear, honest, speaking eyes-and for the rest in a hearty simpleness of manner not unlike David's own.

John had been a great favorite with David Fenton in the past, and he himself had been the boy's father confessor in more than one case. Clarence, though younger, had been an adept in getting himself and John into scrapes," escaping himself and leaving John to bear the consequences-not because John was stupid, but because he would never betray his brother. To-day David's "How is it with thee, John ?" had the old sympathetic ring, and soon he was hearing more of the young man's life than any one else knew. The property was all gone save the house that sheltered them. His father was helpless, his aunt totally dependent for means of support. Clarence -well, he had been used to spending money freely; he had elegant tastes, and his friends were fashionable and wealthy. It had been a great blow to him when he was recalled from a long, leisurely European tour to learn that his father was no longer able to honor his large cheques. He had gone at once into the position So provided, and had business ability. much John said of his brother and no more, until David, suspecting the truth, bluntly asked, Does Clarence help thee carry on this household ?"

"Oh, yes, of course, in a measure."

"In a just measure? Surely he has a good salary if cashier for the Wintertons. I know the firm. And what is thy occupation ?"

Leaving the first question unanswered, John replied: "I am doing journalistic work, for which I flatter myself I have an aptitude. It pays me tolerably well. You know I wasted five years in Europe after I came out of college-or, no, it was not wasted. My experiences and my notebooks serve me now as material for use in my work. It occurred to me to-day that I would add to what I make by another trade and turn pedagogue. Father frets so that I must be home a few hours each day. He is contented if I am under the roof. Now, I might fit boys for college or coach backward ones. I remember father paid an old professor a good round sum for getting Clarence up in Latin once."

"Did he stay up ?" asked David, and

then shook with silent merriment at a series of pranks that ended in Clarence leaving college for the foreign tour. The Quaker often laughed thus; one never heard, but only saw this fun.

"Do you know any boys wanting a tutor? If you do, I will take it very kindly if you will send them to me. You know I was something of a grind in college."

David knew he took the prizes for classics, and promised to keep his request in mind.

Just then a shrill, fretful voice was heard from above asking:

"Hannah has not John come yet? I want to be lifted to the sofa."

With a word or two more David departed, having learned much, but far from the whole of matters in the Welles family.

It was still sunshine everywhere, but if the city was pleasant, the country was still more so to our Friend. His errands done, he turned cheerfully homeward. Family he had none, having, after the brief love story hinted at, never married, but he lived content with an odd old neighbor and his spinster daughter. His own house, a wormy old mansion, was rented to several widows and poor

families. It was suspected that David's rents were collected once in ninety-nine years, and the pay-day would scarcely come in their lifetimes.

Miss Elizabeth Hogarth stood by her library window watching something.

It will not take long to draw her picture; very tall and slight, fine brown hair a little waving at the forehead and neck, gray eyes, and features that singularly were not beautiful, the whole face white and pure. Her dress was rich; not studiedly free from ornament, but apparently lacking it through negligence. On the sofa from which she had arisen was a heap of silks, wool, and fancy work, tumbled among open books; one great volume had fallen down and now formed the pedestal for a huge tortoise-shell cat who had made an animated statue of himself thereon.

"Mother!" said Miss Hogarth suddenly, "I am going over to Father Cobb's to see David Fenton. He told father that he wanted to see me for something."

A voice from the shadow responded: "You had better stay in! You will get