mind of the doctrine of
hell. It was a necessity of the moral universe. God simply must consume
such trash. Nothing else could be done with it.

With a sudden impulse, he threw his right hand high above his head and
his voice boomed over the crowd in a peal of command. The effect was
electrical. A painful hush followed. The swaying mass stood rooted in
their tracks by the tones of authority his first word had expressed.

"Gentlemen!"

He paused and his next words were spoken in intense silence.

"My answer to the extraordinary greeting you have given me this morning
is simple. I am not working for your approval, I work for my own
approval, because I must in obedience to the call within me. Long ago
in my life I gave up ambition and ceased to ask anything for myself.
You cannot destroy my career because I cherish none. If I succeed in
the work to which I have been called it is well. If I fail, it is also
well. I have done my duty and obeyed the call to the service of my
fellow-man!"

Again he paused as his voice choked with deep emotion. The crowd stared
as if in a spell.

"The scene you are enacting here this morning is a disgrace to
humanity. You have surrendered to the unmeaning fear that drives a herd
of swine over a precipice. You have, by an act of your will, joined in
a movement to paralyze the motive power of the world--faith! There is
but one thing that runs this earth of ours for a single day--faith in
one another.

"You are scrambling here for a few dollars in this bank. What can you
do with it when you draw it out? There is not enough cash in the world
to transact a single day's business. Business is run on credit--faith.

"Faith is the sustaining force of all personal and social life; a panic
is its end--a lapse to the level of the beast of the field whose life
is ruled by fear.

"Banks were not made as strong boxes for the hoarding of money. Money
was hoarded in strong boxes centuries before banks were invented. Banks
are institutions of public credit, to facilitate the useful circulation
of money, not its withdrawal from use. The business of a bank is to
keep money moving and make it do the world's work. You are attempting
to stop the work by the destruction of its faith."

Suddenly a man who had quietly pushed his way through the crowd sprang
on the step before the speaker and thrust a revolver into his face.

A cry of horror swept the crowd, as Stuart paused, turned pale and
looked steadil