Gloria in Excelsis_. I
was most anxious about that. How did it sound to you, sir?"

"Well."

"But, after all, they didn't understand it."

"Understand what?"

"The meaning. It opens with the song of the angels, you know. 'Glory be to
God on high; on earth, peace, good will toward men.' They couldn't tell,
coherently, what the Peace and Good Will meant. That's the worst of it.
How can they sing what they don't understand?"

"Surely. Why don't you teach them?"

"Why don't I teach them!" exclaimed the organist. "I'm not a brain-maker;
that's the reason, I suppose."

"Then, you've tried it?"

For a minute Summerman seemed vexed by this question; but for no longer
than a minute.

"What's the use? what's the use?" he said to himself, and his answer to
the question was a laugh.

The laugh, though neither loud nor boisterous, but merely a mild evidence
of good-nature that was not to be clouded by vexations, had a disagreeable
sound to Redman Rush. He looked contemptuous, and felt more than he
looked, so that it was really surprising to see him linger for such
conversation as this of the organist, and to hear him ask,

"How do you teach your choir? Whose fault is it that they cannot learn?"

"Their own fault," answered Summerman. "They've got to learn more than the
notes. So they complain. You can't make a singer out of a note-book. I've
tried that enough. Now I try to show them that peace means a riddance of
selfishness, and that selfishness is the devil's device for holding the
world together. Not God's; for his idea is love, and was in the beginning.
Wasn't the world given to understand, that the life which was born was the
love, truth, and beauty of the world, and that by Him all truth and beauty
must live? They can't see it. I can't make a man or woman understand that
an idea must be the centre around which the life will revolve. They come
to practise, not to hear preaching, they say."

It seemed as if at this, and because of this announcement, Redman Rush
drew himself apart and up, loftily, and with a gloomy defiance looked
around him. When Summerman's eyes turned toward him, he seemed gazing into
distance, and gave no indication that he had heard a word of what had been
said. The organist was disappointed. He had hoped again for criticism; but
he went on, perhaps with some suspicion of the correctness of his
convictions--at least he had not said all he wished to say.

"We must have a centre--an idea," sai