March, which brings to the North sharp winds and gray days, brings to

the sand-hill country its season of greatest beauty.

Straight up from the unpromising soil springs the green--the pines bud

and blossom, everywhere there is the delicate tracery of pale leafage,

there is the white of dogwood, the pink of peach trees and of apple

bloom, and again the white of cherry trees and of bridal bush. There

are amethystine vistas, and emerald vistas, and vistas of rose and

saffron--the cardinals burn with a red flame in the magnolias, the

mocking-birds sing in the moonlight.

It was through the awakened world that Roger drove one Sunday to preach

to his people.

He did not call it preaching. As yet his humility gave it no such

important name. He simply went into the sand-hills and talked to those

who were eager to hear. Beginning with the boy, he had found that

these thirsty souls drank at any spring. The boys listened breathless

to his tales of chivalry, the men to his tales of what other men had

achieved, the women were reached by stories of what their children

might be, and the children rose to his bait of fairy books and of

colored pictures.

Gradually he had gone beyond the tales of chivalry and the achievements

of men. Gradually he had brought them up and up. Other men had

preached to them, but their preaching had not been linked with lessons

of living. Others had cried, "Repent," but not one of them had laid

emphasis on the fact that repentance was evidenced by the life which

followed.

But Roger stood among them, his young face grave, his wonderful voice

persuasive, and told them what it meant to be--saved. Planting hope

first in their hearts, he led them toward the Christ-ideal. Manhood,

he said, at its best was godlike; one must have purity, energy,

education, growth.

And they, who listened, began to see that it was a spiritual as well as

practical thing to set their houses in order, to plant and to till and

to make the soil produce. They saw in the future a community which was

orderly and law-abiding, they saw their children brought out of the

bondage of ignorance and into the freedom of knowledge. And they saw

more than that--they saw the Vision, faintly at first, but with

ever-increasing clearness.

It was a wonderful task which Roger had set for himself, and he threw

himself into his work with flaming energy. He hired a buggy and a

little fat horse, and spent some of his nights en route in the houses

of his friends along the way; other nights--and these were the ones he

liked best--he slept under the pines. With John Ballard's old Bible

under his arm, and his prayer-book in his pocket, he went forth each

week, and always he found a congregation ready and waiting.




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