parish in a not too rich Diocese, hopeless three years ago,
but now--well, there it is across the lot, that symphony in stone,
every line of its chaste gothic a "Te Deum" that even an agnostic
could understand and appreciate; every bit of carving the paragraph of
a sermon that passers-by, perforce, must hear. To-day it is to be
consecrated, the cap-stone is to be set on Father Broidy's Arch of
Triumph and the real life of Alta parish to begin.

"I thought you had but sixteen families here," said the Bishop as he
watched the crowd stream into the church.

"There were but eighteen, Bishop," the young priest answered, with a
happy smile that had considerable self-satisfaction in it. "There are
seventy-five now."

"And how did it come about, my lad?" questioned the Bishop.

"Mostly through my mission bringing back some of the 'ought-to-be's,'
but I suppose principally because my friend McDermott opened his
factory to Catholics. You know, Bishop, that though he was born one of
us he had somehow acquired a bitter hatred of the Church, and he never
employed Catholics until I brought him around."

There was a shadow of a smile that had meaning to it on the Bishop's
face, as he patted the ardent young pastor on the arm, and said:

"Well, God bless him! God bless him! but I suppose we must begin to
vest now. Is it not near ten o'clock?"

Father Broidy turned with a little shade of disappointment on his
face to the work of preparation, and soon had the procession started
toward the church.

Shall I describe the beauty of it all?--the lights and flowers, the
swinging censers, with the glory of the chant and the wealth of mystic
symbolism which followed the passing of that solemn procession into
the sanctuary? That could best be imagined, like the feeling in the
heart of the young pastor who adored every line of the building. He
had watched the laying of each stone, and could almost count the chips
that had jumped from every chisel. There had never been so beautiful a
day to him, and never such a ceremony but one--three years ago in the
Seminary chapel. He almost forgot it in the glory of the present. Dear
me, how well Kaiser did preach! He always knew it, did Father Broidy,
that young Kaiser had it in him. He did not envy him a bit of the
congratulations. They were a part of Father Broidy's triumph, too. It
was small wonder that the Dean whispered to the Bishop on the way back
to the rectory:

"You will have to put Broi