instantly tonight and her whole being responded. In ten minutes she was
a good shouting Methodist and supremely happy without knowing why. She
never paused to ask. Her nature was profoundly religious and she had
been born and bred in the atmosphere of revivals. Her father was an
aggressive evangelist both in his character and methods of work, and she
was his own daughter--a child of emotion.

The individuals in the eager crowd which packed the popular church meant
nothing to her personally. They had passed before her unseeing eyes
Sunday after Sunday the past five years as mere shadows of an unknown
world which swallowed them up the moment they reached the street. She
had never seen the inside of one of their homes. Not one of them had
drawn close enough to her to venture an invitation.

Two of the stewards she knew personally--one a bricklayer, the other a
baker on Eighth Avenue. The preacher she had met in a purely formal way
as the bishop of the flock. She liked Dr. Craddock. He was known in the
ministry as a live wire. He was a man of vigorous physique--just turning
fifty, magnetic, eloquent and popular with the masses.

Mary was curious tonight as to what the preacher would say on "The Woman
of the Future." The Methodist Church had been a pioneer in the modern
Feminist movement, having long ago admitted women to the full ordination
of the ministry. Craddock, however, had been known for his conservatism
in the woman movement. He abhorred the idea of woman's suffrage as a
dangerous revolution and the fact that he consented to treat the topic
at all was a reluctant confession of its menacing importance.

With keen interest, the girl saw him rise at last. A breathless hush
fell on the crowd. He walked deliberately to the edge of the platform
and gazed into the faces of the people.

"I have often been asked," he slowly began, "where I get my sermons." He
paused and laughed. "I'll be perfectly honest with you. Sometimes I get
them from the Bible--sometimes from the book of life. The genesis of
this talk tonight is very definite. I found it in the liquid depths of
a little girl's eyes. She asked a simple question that set me
thinking--not only about the subject of her query but on the vaster
issues that grew out of it. She looked up into my face the other night
after my call for volunteers for the new mission we are beginning in the
slums of the East Side, and asked me if the girls were not going to be
given the chanc