led, who failed to conform, he excommunicated; a code
something like the map of Europe,--apparently inconsistent in places.
What I did not then comprehend was that he was the American Principle
personified, the supreme individual assertion of the conviction that
government should remain modestly in the background while the efficient
acquired the supremacy that was theirs by natural right; nor had I
grasped at that time the crowning achievement of a unity that fused
Christianity with those acquisitive dispositions said to be inherent in
humanity. In him the Lion and the Lamb, the Eagle and the Dove dwelt
together in amity and power.

New York, always a congenial place to gentlemen of vitality and means and
influential connections, had never appeared to me more sparkling, more
inspiring. Winter had relented, spring had not as yet begun. And as I sat
in a corner of the dining-room of my hotel looking out on the sunlit
avenue I was conscious of partaking of the vigour and confidence of the
well-dressed, clear-eyed people who walked or drove past my window with
the air of a conquering race. What else was there in the world more worth
having than this conquering sense? Religion might offer charms to the
weak. Yet here religion itself became sensible, and wore the garb of
prosperity. The stonework of the tall church on the corner was all lace;
and the very saints in their niches, who had known martyrdom and poverty,
seemed to have renounced these as foolish, and to look down complacently
on the procession of wealth and power.. Across the street, behind a sheet
of glass, was a carrosserie where were displayed the shining yellow and
black panels of a closed automobile, the cost of which would have built a
farm-house and stocked a barn.

At eleven o'clock, the appointed hour, I was in Wall Street. Sending in
my name, I was speedily ushered into a room containing a table, around
which were several men; but my eyes were drawn at once to the figure of
the great banker who sat, massive and preponderant, at one end, smoking a
cigar, and listening in silence to the conversation I had interrupted. He
rose courteously and gave me his hand, and a glance that is
unforgettable.

"It is good of you to come, Mr. Paret," he said simply, as though his
summons had not been a command. "Perhaps you know some of these
gentlemen."

One of them was our United States Senator, Theodore Watling. He, as it
turned out, had been summoned from Washingto