“The man who took up the work of the world’s salvation, began to be about thirty years of age when he came forth to public ministry,” returned Mr. Vireo.

“I never thought of that before.  I wonder I never did.  It has come home to me, in many other parts of that Life, how full it is of scarcely recognized analogy to prevailing human experience.  That ‘driving into the Wilderness!’ What an inevitable interval it is between the realizing of a special power and the finding out of its special purpose!  I am in the Wilderness,—­or was,—­Vireo; but I knew my way lay through it.  I have been pausing—­thinking—­striving to know.  The temptations may not have been wanting, altogether, either.  There are so many things one can do easily; considering one’s self, largely, in the plan.  My whole life has waited, in some chief respects, till the end of these ten pledged years.  What was I to do with it?  Where was I to look for, and find most speedily, all that a man begins to feel the desire to establish for himself at thirty years old?  Home, society, sphere; I can tell you it is a strange feeling to take one’s fortune in one’s hand and come forth from such a business exile, and choose where one will make the first link,—­decide the first condition, which may draw after all the rest.  Happily, I had my sister to come home to; and I had the remembrance of the little story my mother told me—­about my name.  I think she looked forward for the boy who could know so little then of the destiny partly laid out for him already.”

“About your name?” reminded Mr. Vireo.  He always liked to hear the whole of a thing; especially a thing that touched and influenced spiritually.

“Yes.  The story of Saint Cristofero.  The strong man, Offero, who would serve the strongest; who served a great king, till he learned that the king feared Satan; who then sought Satan and served him, till he found that Satan feared the Cross; who sought for Jesus, then, that he might serve Him, and found a hermit who bade him fast and pray.  But he would not fast, since from his food came his strength to serve with; nor pray, because it seemed to him idle; but he went forth to help those who were in danger of being swept away, as they struggled to cross the deep, wide River.  He bore them through upon his shoulders,—­the weak, the little, the weary.  At last, he bore a little child who entreated him, and the child grew heavy, and heavier, till, when they reached the other side, Offero said,—­’I feel as if I had borne the world upon my shoulders!’ And he was answered,—­’Thou may’st say that; for thou hast borne Him who made the world.’  And then he knew that it was the Lord; and he was called no more ‘Offero,’ but ‘Cristofero.’  My mother told me that when I was a little child; and the story has grown in me.  The Christ has yet to be borne on men’s shoulders.”

Hilary Vireo stood and listened with gleaming eyes.  Of course, he knew the old saint-legend; of course, Christopher Kirkbright supposed it; but these were men who understood without the saying, that the verities are forever old and forever new.  A mother’s wise and tender tale,—­a child’s life growing into a man’s, and sanctifying itself with a purpose,—­these were the informing that filled afresh every sentence of the story, and made its repetition a most fair and sweet origination.