onoured
guest, in the chair which Mr. Langmaid now occupied....

It was not until they got up from the table that her father turned to
her.

"Did you have a good sermon?" he asked.

It was the underlying note of challenge to which she responded.

"The only good sermon I have ever heard."

Their eyes met. Langmaid looked down at the tip of his cigar.

"Mr. Hodder," said Eldon Parr, "is to be congratulated."

II

Hodder, when the service was over, had sought the familiar recess in the
robing-room, the words which he himself had spoken still ringing in
his ears. And then he recalled the desperate prayer with which he had
entered the pulpit, that it might be given him in that hour what to say:
the vivid memories of the passions and miseries in Dalton Street, the
sudden, hot response of indignation at the complacency confronting him.
His voice had trembled with anger.... He remembered, as he had paused in
his denunciation of these who had eyes and saw not, meeting the
upturned look of Alison Parr, and his anger had turned to pity for
their blindness--which once had been his own; and he had gone on and on,
striving to interpret for them his new revelation of the message of the
Saviour, to impress upon them the dreadful yet sublime meaning of life
eternal. And it was in that moment the vision of the meaning of the
evolution of his race, of the Prodigal turning to responsibility--of
which he once had had a glimpse--had risen before his eyes in its
completeness--the guiding hand of God in history! The Spirit in these
complacent souls, as yet unstirred....

So complete, now, was his forgetfulness of self, of his future, of the
irrevocable consequences of the step he had taken, that it was only
gradually he became aware that some one was standing near him, and with
a start he recognized McCrae.

"There are some waiting to speak to ye," his assistant said.

"Oh!" Hodder exclaimed. He began, mechanically, to divest himself of his
surplice. McCrae stood by.

"I'd like to say a word, first--if ye don't mind--" he began.

The rector looked at him quickly.

"I'd like just to thank ye for that sermon--I can say no more now," said
McCrae; he turned away, and left the room abruptly.

This characteristic tribute from the inarticulate, loyal Scotchman left
him tingling.... He made his way to the door and saw the people in the
choir room, standing silently, in groups, looking toward him. Some one
spoke to him, and he re