IF In his book called The Kingdom of Heaven, which is a detailed statement of the writer's own personal faith, Peter Eosegger tells us of a Styrian farmer who was known to his neighbours by the nickname of "The Pair." He was always engaged in converse with some unseen friend. If he came to a part of the road where there was a rough path and a smooth, he took the rough path and left the other for his unseen companion. When he came to an inn he always ordered two glasses of wine, one for himself and one for his friend who was with him, and the friend's glass of wine had always to be served on the best utensil the inn could provide. And when paying his bill he would give directions that the friend's glass of wine, left behind, should be given to the first poor man who came that way. In his own home, at every meal, he always reserved the seat of honour at his right hand for this unseen friend, and before this vacant chair there was placed the best that his home could provide. And so he lived a most peaceful and cheerful life. At last he came to lie down on what proved to be the bed of his last sickness ; and while lying there he had a vacant chair placed by him, and kept his right hand out, holding the hand of his unseen friend, and maintained with him low-toned converse. Men asked him who was there, and he said, " Don't you know ? He is there ; " and they came to understand that he believed, that he knew, that Jesus Christ was there. And so he died ; and on the day of his funeral, Eosegger tells us, in his own beautiful and touching way, the grave was opened near a large marble figure of the Good Shepherd. It was a lovely day ; the sun was shining brightly upon the marble figure, and a white shaft of light shot from the marble figure into the heart of the grave, and this Styrian farmer, who had lived this life of faith in the unseen, but very real. Son of God, was laid in that grave with the white light of heaven illuminating his darkness, a fitting termination to a life so pure and trustful.^
* ^ G. Matheson, Searchings in the Silence, p. 132.
^ G. Hanson in 2'he Free Church Year Book for 1908, p. 137.
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