d you care? Your life is
attuned to the most pagan philosophy which all the ages of sin have
evolved. You have sunk so low that you are content to sit and listen to
the story of your ignominy...."

What fascination was it that kept them in their places? Holderness, who
was sitting in the last row, fully expected to see them leave their
seats and stream out; Macheson himself would not have been surprised.
His voice had no particular charm, his words were simple words of abuse,
he attempted no rhetorical flourishes, nor any of the tricks of oratory.
He stood there like a disgusted schoolmaster lecturing a rebellious and
backward school. Holderness, when he saw that no one left, chuckled to
himself. Macheson, aware that his powers of invective were spent,
suddenly changed his tone.

Consciously or unconsciously, he told them, every one was seeking to
fashion his life according to some hidden philosophy, some unrealized
ideal. With religion, as it was commonly understood, he had, in that
place at any rate, nothing to do. Even the selfish drifting down the
stream of idle pleasures, which constituted life for most of them, was
the passive acceptance in their consciousness of the old "faineant"
philosophy of "laissez faire." Had they any idea of the magnificent
stimulus which work could give to the emptiest life! For health's
sake alone, they were willing sometimes to step out of the rut of
their easy-going existence, to discipline their bodies at foreign
watering-places, to take up courses of physical exercises, as prescribed
by the fashionable crank of the moment. What they would do for their
bodies, why should they not try for their souls! The one was surely as
near decay as the other--the care of it, if only they would realize it,
was ten thousand times more important! He had called them, perhaps, many
hard names. There was one he could not call them. He could not call them
cowards. On the contrary, he thought them the bravest people he had ever
known, to live the lives they did, and await the end with the equanimity
they showed. The equivalent of Hell, whatever it might be, had evidently
no terrors for them....

He concluded his address abruptly, as his custom was, a few minutes
later, and turned at once to leave the platform. But this afternoon an
unexpected incident occurred. A man from the middle of the audience rose
up and called to him by name.

Macheson, surprised, paused and turned round. It was Deyes who stood