The Voice at Midnight

"It is the King's highway that we are in; and know this, His messengers
are on it. They who have ears to hear will hear; and He opens the eyes
of some, and they see things not to be lightly spoken of."

It was John Balmuto who said these words to me. John was a Shetlander,
and for forty years he had gone to the Arctic seas with the whale boats.
Then there had come to him a wonderful experience. He had been four days
and nights alone with God upon the sea, among mountains of ice reeling
together in perilous madness, and with little light but the angry flush
of the aurora. Then, undoubtedly, was born that strong faith in the
Unseen which made him an active character in the facts I am going to
relate.

After his marvelous salvation, he devoted his life to the service of God
by entering that remarkable body of lay evangelists attached to the
Presbyterian Church in Highland parishes, called "The Men," and he
became noted throughout the Hebrides for his labors, and for his
knowledge of the Scriptures.

Circumstances, that summer, had thrown us together; I, a young woman,
just entering an apparently fortunate life; he, an aged saint, standing
on the borderland of eternity. And we were sitting together, in the gray
summer gloaming, when he said to me, "Thou art silent to-night. What
hast thou, then, on thy mind?"

"I had a strange dream. I cannot shake off its influence. Of course it
is folly, and I don't believe in dreams at all." And it was then he said
to me, "It is the King's highway that we are in, and know this, His
messengers are on it."

"But it was only a dream."

"Well, God speaks to His children 'in dreams, and by the oracles that
come in darkness.'"

"He used to do so."

"Wilt thou then say that He has ceased so to speak to men? Now, I will
tell thee a thing that happened; I will tell thee just the bare facts; I
will put nothing to, nor take anything away from them.

"'Tis, five years ago the first day of last June. I was in Stornoway in
the Lews, and I was going to the Gairloch Preachings. It was rough,
cheerless weather, and all the fishing fleet were at anchor for the
night, with no prospect of a fishing. The fishers were sitting together
talking over the bad weather, but, indeed, without that bitterness that
I have heard from landsmen when it would be the same trouble with them.
So I gathered them into Donald Brae's cottage, and we had a very good
hour. I noticed a stranger in the corner of the room, and some one told
me he was one of those men who paint pictures, and I saw that he was
busy with a pencil and paper even while we were at the service. But the
next day I