er
the rest of the chapel, deepening into darkness in the high gallery
behind the organ.

But what was it after all which seized and held these three hundred
boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing or unwilling, for twenty
minutes, on Sunday afternoon? True, there always were boys scattered up
and down the School, who in heart and head were worthy to hear and able
to carry away the deepest and wisest words there spoken. But these were
a minority always, generally a very small one, often so small a one as
to be countable on the fingers of your hand. What was it that moved and
held us, the rest of the three hundred reckless, childish boys, who
feared the Doctor with all our hearts, and very little besides in heaven
or earth: who thought more of our sets in the School than of the Church
of Christ, and put the traditions of Rugby and the public opinion of
boys in our daily life above the laws of God? We couldn't enter into
half that we heard; we hadn't the knowledge of our own hearts or the
knowledge of one another; and little enough of the faith, hope, and love
needed to that end. But we listened, as all boys in their better moods
will listen (aye, and men too, for the matter of that), to a man who we
felt to be, with all Ins heart and soul and strength, striving against
whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It
was not the cold clear voice of one giving advice and warning from
serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the
warm living voice of one who was fighting for us and by our sides, and
calling on us to help him and ourselves and one another. And so, wearily
and little by little, but surely and steadily on the whole, was brought
home to the young boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life: that
it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered by
chance, but a battle-field ordained from of old, where there are no
spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life
and death. And he who roused his consciousness in them showed them at
the same time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole
daily life, how that battle was to be fought; and stood there before
them their fellow-soldier and the captain of their band. The true sort
of captain, too, for a boy's army, one who had no misgivings and gave no
uncertain word of command, and, let who would yield or make a truce,
would fight the fight out (so every b