Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/184

174 never seen one which so filled my ideal of a home as this plain and poor little parsonage. The secret of it all lay in the fact that its life was idealized idealized, first, by Dorothy Allen's lovingness and her fine sense of beauty and grace; secondly, by her husband's fine sense of moral truth, and his devotion to thought and study. Parson Allen was a rare scholar. Only his great modesty prevented his being known as one of the finest Greek scholars in the country; but all his learning did not in the least detract from the "simplicity of Christ," with which he was filled. I shall never, in any world, hear a grander outburst of praise from lips of saint or angel than these words seemed to me, pronounced as he often used to pronounce them at the end of his morning prayer: "For the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen nor can see; to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen."

His enthusiasm for study, his recognition and love of high thoughts, were no less hearty than his enthusiasm for Christ and his love of souls. There were no limitations to his religion. Life, from Adam until now, was to him all one great, beautiful revelation of God. He was a devoted disciple of Christ; he believed with all his heart in the Christian dispensation; but he walked also with Socrates