re moments when he felt, as every man, howsoever brave, must
feel at times, that he would like to shift all his responsibilities and
go away from the place that seemed destined to tax his powers beyond
their capability of endurance. What could he do for the inhabitants of
Mt. Hope? What was required of him to do? Ever through his mind ran that
world-old question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" He had never asked, "Are
these people my brothers?"

He was up early the next morning, and as soon as breakfast was done, he
sat down to add a few touches to the sermon he had prepared as his
introduction. It was not the first time that he had retouched it and
polished it up here and there. Indeed, he had taken some pride in it.
But as he read it over that day, it did not sound to him as it had
sounded before. It appeared flat and without substance. After a while he
laid it aside, telling himself that he was nervous and it was on this
account that he could not see matters as he did in his calmer moments.
He told himself, too, that he must not again take up the offending
discourse until time to use it, lest the discovery of more imaginary
flaws should so weaken his confidence that he would not be able to
deliver it with effect.

In order better to keep his resolve, he put on his hat and went out for
a walk through the streets of Mt. Hope. He did not find an encouraging
prospect as he went along. The Negroes whom he met viewed him with
ill-favor, and the whites who passed looked on him with unconcealed
distrust and contempt. He began to feel lost, alone, and helpless. The
squalor and shiftlessness which were plainly in evidence about the
houses which he saw filled him with disgust and a dreary hopelessness.

He passed vacant lots which lay open and inviting children to healthful
play; but instead of marbles or leap-frog or ball, he found little boys
in ragged knickerbockers huddled together on the ground, "shooting
craps" with precocious avidity and quarreling over the pennies that made
the pitiful wagers. He heard glib profanity rolling from the lips of
children who should have been stumbling through baby catechisms; and
his heart ached for them.

He would have turned and gone back to his room, but the sound of shouts,
laughter, and the tum-tum of a musical instrument drew him on down the
street. At the turn of a corner, the place from which the noise emanated
met his eyes. It was a rude frame building, low and unpainted. The panes