"Sit down, Donne," said the president, kindly. "It has occurred to me that you ought to know what would suit a farming community in the way of a sermon. Do you think you could satisfy?"

Promptly came the truth:

"I'm afraid not, sir. I am afraid not." "You are always too modest, Donne; but you will get over it. Farmers always respect physical strength and ability, and you have both. I suppose you prepared a sermon when I told you to do so some ten weeks ago."

engineering. I love figures, Al."

"I want to be in the fields," moaned Alpheus. "I get sick for the smell of dirt under the plow."

"Plow, then, and be a good, true man. Don't you go to that Crossroads church. Suppose they should call you?"

But against existing conditions Alpheus Donne could not yet fight. He made ready to go down to the Crossroads, as the other men had done before him.

Pa Gladden did not put in any bid to entertain the third candidate. Indeed, he was now extremely chary of discussing the

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Just get it-or, wait a moment. I see your brother hovering about out there. Send him for it. I am very anxious to suit this Crossroads church, as we have never had any hold upon it. I want to see your sermon, and, if it is all right, I intend to send you down there some Sunday. Is this the sermon? Very neatly arranged. Wait a little-um- -um-um." There was silence for a time, and then the president looked up with a serene brow.

Alpheus, my boy, I did n't think it of you. This is very good. It shows scholarship and historical research. I hope to hear you deliver it in our church some day. You are a credit to us. If the Crossroads church is not satisfied with this, we will not worry about them, that 's all. But for this special purpose, my son, could n't you cut out some of the classical allusions and perhaps add a few homely illustrations?"

The truly wretched Alpheus retired to the shade of a tree on the campus, and Agar followed soon after.

with Dr. Briskett. Brother Silas Wakefield, who lived near Needmore's Cut, beyond which the railway lay, said that he would entertain this young brother, and so it was arranged. But when Alpheus Donne alighted at the way-station, the first Saturday in July, it was Melonie Hathaway alone who met and welcomed him.

"Brother Wakefield's wife is very ill, taken suddenly. You are to stay with me and Brother Cowgill, who farms my place."

Alpheus Donne looked at this fair girl as if awakened from a long sleep. Melonie Hathaway looked at him with kindly admiration and friendship.

Not until a late hour that night did he sleep. He would preach his first and last sermon to-morrow, and then, God willing, he would put his hand to the plow in every sense. He repudiated no teaching he had. had; he desired to live nearer to God, but not as a chosen spokesman. To-morrow he would leave the Crossroads settlement and go home to his mother. Some day he would come back, and he prayed that Melonie Hathaway would be waiting for him as to-day she had waited.

"Asy, he air shorely a man."

"A fine man," replied the younger Gladden, in a puzzled voice. "But, pa, you have fretted too much over this affair. Every church has a hard time now and again to find a suitable preacher."

Pa Gladden shook his head gravely as the splendid, blond-haired Alpheus passed to the church door between Melonie Hathaway and Mrs. Cowgill. There was no doubt of the attraction of that personality in the crowded church. They were strength-loving people. Then Alpheus

Alpheus had never counted on that voice in his church work, but it caught up all hearts with its splendid fullness and fervor. Sweet and sonorous, it stilled every other, and the man never knew that he sang the last stanza alone.

The congregation was in an intense state of expectation when the preacher spread out his manuscript on the worm-eaten pulpit. For the first time in forty-five years old Mrs. Confere whispered in church. What she said was that thet⚫

sermon looks percisely like thet one of them yuther fellers."

Pa Gladden was decidedly nervous. He moved his lips as he was seldom seen to do. Then, clear and loud, came the text:

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: . . . and his angels were cast out with him.

They listened in silence, but with compressed lips. Alpheus Donne felt the scorn, not knowing the occasion. By a strong effort of his new-found will he struggled through. The sermon differed from the others only in its brevity. There was an ominous quiet after it, which the minister relieved by starting a hymn, during which the people sat as if spellbound. Then they passed out, and the church was empty. Not one remained to shake his hand or to say a kind word.

He put the sermon into his pocket and took up his hat. As he did so four people came in at the side door. They were Pa Gladden and young Asahel, Melonie Hathaway and Persephone Riggs. Melonie's piquant face was clouded and sober. "Young man," began Pa Gladden, slowly, "I warnt ter ast ye, ez man ter man, ef ye writ thet sermon on the big dragon, er who in the Sam Hill did?"

Alpheus Donne replied promptly:

"I did not write it, sir, and I do not know who did. I bought it of a sermon bureau." "He did n't writ it!" exclaimed Pa Gladden to young Asy. "But how could he buy it of a bureau, son? Bureaus air shorely ter put on yer collars by."

LXVI.-101

Young Asahel explained, and Alpheus Donne added a few words:

"I can't write a sermon any more than I can paint a picture."

"You mean that you had not the courage to try," said young Asahel, gravely, "and the other men must have had similar

misgivings. The sermon bureau evidently had a supply of great-dragon sermons on hand, and you were all caught in the same trap. Did n't you know that the other two candidates preached the same sermon here that you did?”

A hot wave went over the blond man's face.

“God forgive me, I did not!" was what he said.

"Brother Donne," said Pa Gladden, mild

ly," this must be explained ter all our people. They air waitin'. Ye sung yerself right inter their hearts. They air grievin' turrible. Wull ye speak ter them? We wull all come in.” The young man waited but a moment, then his inspiration came.

"I have been living a lie. I will go out there and speak-not in a church. For this is the end, and I am glad it is over."

The people were waiting under the trees. Pa Gladden cleared a little space among them, and stood by the stranger. Melonie Hathaway was on the other side, while young Asahel gently pushed Persephone before himself. Alpheus Donne looked neither right nor left.

"My brethren," he began, "I owe you an explanation and an apology. My kind friends tell me that I have preached a sermon to you that has been preached here by both the other candidates. I will tell you how I came by it."

He told the story of his dedication, his own convictions, and his determination as to his future life. Then, kneeling, he asked the blessing of the Most High on himself and them.

Pa Gladden stretched forth a trembling hand.

"The Lord hez ye," he said brokenly. Stay with us, Brother Donne." Many lips caught up the words: "Stay with us!"

Alpheus Donne heard but one voice, that of Melonie Hathaway. He turned toward her.

AST December a very distinguished body of men met in Washington, under the auspices of the Bureau of American Republics. These men were the most active and learned sanitarians of their respective governments. They came from Cuba and the Central and South American republics, as well as from many parts of the United States. They constituted the Third International Sanitary Convention, and their discussions related almost solely to yellow fever. The writer attended the convention by invitation, and was greatly impressed by the fact that this body, representing the most advanced medical thought of the Americas, and undoubtedly the soundest judgment in sanitary matters, unanimously accepted as an absolutely demonstrated fact that certain mosquitos carry yellow fever. Less than two years had elapsed since the "British Medical Journal" had said of the experiments of the United States Army Yellow Fever Commission, "At the most they are suggestive"; and yet every one of these authorities acknowledged himself convinced, and the majority of them announced the opinion, that these mosquitos

constitute the only means by which the disease is spread. I wonder whether Dr. James Carroll, the only survivor of the American members of the commission, who was present at the meeting, felt any greater pride in this acceptance of the wonderful results of the work of our Army Medical Department than did the layman who writes these lines.

Yellow fever has prevailed endemically throughout the West Indies and in certain regions on the Spanish main virtually since the discovery of America. The Barbados, Jamaica, and Cuba suffered epidemics before the middle of the seventh century. There were outbreaks in Philadelphia, Charleston, and Boston as early as 1692, and for a hundred years there were occasional outbreaks, culminating in the great Philadelphia epidemic of 1793. Northern cities were able, by sanitary and quarantine measures, to prevent great epidemics after the early part of the nineteenth century; but from the West Indies the disease was occasionally introduced, and it prevailed epidemically in the Southern States. In 1853 it raged throughout this region, New Orleans alone having a mortality of eight thousand. The last extensive epidemic

occurred in 1878, chiefly in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, and the total mortality was sixteen thousand. In 1889 it again prevailed in Jacksonville, Florida, and certain other restricted places. The actual loss of life from the disease itself has been but a small part of the affliction which it has brought to our Southern country. The disease once discovered in epidemic form, the whole country has become alarmed: commerce in the affected region has come virtually to a standstill; cities have been deserted ; people have died from exposure in camping out in the highlands; rigid quarantines have been established; innocent persons have been shot while endeavoring to pass these quarantine lines; all industry for the time has ceased. And yet these conditions, bad as they have been, do not sum up the total danger to national prosperity. Subject to occasional epidemics as they have been supposed to be in the past, cities like Galveston, New Orleans, Mobile, Jacksonville, and Charleston have not prospered as they should have done, and the industrial development of the entire South has been retarded.

Now all of these conditions have been done away with. Fears for the future have been allayed. It may safely be predicted that never again in the history of the United States will an epidemic of yellow fever occur. And all of this has been brought about by the discovery that once more a mosquito must be blamed for one of the greatest of human ills.

Medical men had been theorizing about the cause of yellow fever from the time when they began to treat it. It was thought by many that it was carried in the air; by others that it was conveyed by the clothing, bedding, or other articles which had come in contact with a yellowfever patient. With the discovery of the agency of micro-organisms in the causation of disease, a search soon began for some causative germ. Many such were found in the course of autopsies, and many claims were put forth by investigators. All these, however, were virtually set at rest by Sternberg in his "Report on the Etiology and Prevention of Yellow Fever," published in 1890; but a claim made by Sanarelli, in June, 1897, for a bacillus which he called B. icteroides received considerable credence, and in 1899 it was accepted in full by two surgeons of the United States Ma

rine Hospital Service, Doctors Wasdin and Geddings, who reported that they had found this bacillus in thirteen out of fourteen cases of yellow fever in the city of Havana.

In 1881, Dr. Carlos Finlay of Havana, a Cuban by birth, although of an English father, proposed the theory that yellow fever is conveyed by means of a mosquito, and the species which he designated as the probable conveyer was Culex (now Stegomyia) fasciatus. Subsequently he published several important papers in which his views were modified from time to time, and in the course of which he mentioned experiments with one hundred individuals, producing three cases of mild fever. None of the cases, however, was under his full control, and the possibility of other methods of gaining the disease were not excluded. Therefore his theory, while it was received with interest, was not considered to be proved, and it was even thought that he himself had apparently proved it to be incorrect.

In the summer of 1900 came the beginning of the true demonstration. In that year Surgeon-General Sternberg appointed a board for the purpose of investigating the acute infectious diseases prevailing on the island of Cuba. This board consisted of Major Walter Reed, surgeon in the United States army, and contract surgeons James Carroll, Aristides Agramonte, and Jesse W. Lazear, of the United States army. The board arrived at Quemado, Cuba, on June 25, 1900. Preliminary observations showed several significant facts: Non-immune nurses did not contract the disease. Bacteriological examinations of the blood and organs of yellow-fever patients after death indicated no specific bacteria, and experiments with Dr. Finlay's mosquito were begun. Eleven persons were bitten by contaminated mosquitos. With nine of them there was no result; with two yellow fever appeared. In one of these two cases there had been possible opportunity for infection from other sources, but in one the circumstances were such as to exclude any other source of infection, and the commission, therefore, in a modest little paper entitled "The Etiology of Yellow Fever -A Preliminary Note," read before the Twenty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association at Indianapolis, Indiana, in October, 1900, announced that