Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/72

60 passed through a great sorrow, and to his acquaintances it seemed that he had been purified by pain. He lived such a simple, sinless life that those about him believed in him and in the faith he held, and in time he had a number of converts to what they called the Reslis religion." He was constantly preaching. "Strive hard, strive hard," he would say to those about him. "Remember that all the good you do in this life will count for you in the life to come. The more you suffer here the more you will enjoy there—be patient."

One sultry summer day, when all the help were complaining of the heat in the kitchen, the patient cook surprised them by beginning to sing, as he went about his work, a thing he had never done before.

"I think I shall go away soon," he said, when the second cook asked the cause of his apparent happiness.

"Where? Oh! that I do not know; but to a better place than this, I hope. Not that this is a bad world; but we must advance,—go on and up, up and on, until we reach the perfect life."