Nevertheless, he went on with his church work, studying the problem of the town, endearing himself to very many in and out of his church by his manly, courageous life, and feeling the heart-ache grow in him as the sin burden of the place weighed heavier on him.

Those were days when Philip did much praying, and his regular preaching, which grew in power with the common people, told the story of his night vigils with the Christ he adored.
It was at this particular time that a special event occurred which put its mark on Philip's work in Milton and became a part of its web and woof--a thing hard to tell, but necessary to relate as best one may.
He came home late one evening from church meeting, letting himself into the parsonage with his night-key, and, not seeing his wife in the sitting-room, where she was in the habit of reading and sewing, he walked on into the small sewing-room, where she sometimes sat at special work, thinking to find her there.

She was not there, and Philip opened the kitchen door and inquired of the servant, who sat there reading, where his wife was.
"I think she went upstairs a little while ago," was the reply.
Philip went at once upstairs into his study, and, to his alarm, found that his wife had fainted.

She lay on the floor in front of his desk.

As Philip stooped to raise her he noticed two pieces of paper, one of them addressed to "The Preacher," and the other to "The Preacher's Wife." They were anonymous scrawls, threatening the lives of the minister and his wife.