The Rev. Barton loses faith in the gospel he preaches, and determines to continue his hypocrisy no longer. He resigns from the church, and leaving a note to his wife and child, he goes out into the world, choosing its wide path of thorns and throes, of sneers and tears. He drifts west and once again resumes man’s old battle with the earth, not for its life-sustaining fruits and foods, but for the yellow gold which through the ages has made hearts yellow, hands red, souls black. Days, and human hearts, break; days, and human hopes, wane; five years elapse. The barren battle is won. He finds gold, but it does not bring him the happiness he bartered for it, and he determines to return to civilization and find contentment in the cities. In making the trip across country, he falls from his horse and injures himself, and he is compelled to seek shelter in a miner’s hut. The country round about is famous, or infamous, for the daring desperadoes that infest it, and Barton, suspicious of his host, is on the alert to discover any treachery, or deceit, he does not partake of the food offered him, and when the miner and his family retire, he prepares to stay awake and watch his gold. Sitting moodily before the fireplace, he hears the miner’s little daughter reciting her prayers. At once his fears vanish, his suspicions disappear. “They are people of God!” he cries. “They are pure!” Then he asks himself the question that has harassed man since the first of him saw the dim light, the answer to which we can find nowhere but within ourselves. Why, because they read the Bible, did he lose fear? And the answer comes to his heart; he hears “the small still voice,” the wandering music of the world. The echo of infinity, and the realization comes to him, when faith comes, fear goes. The next morning he departs, and returns to the scene of his former life. His wife and child had strayed away; he seeks them, and some Power causes him to find. Fate itself is conquered by Faith.