urst, disappear in thin air. In all that community I suppose there
was no one but the little faded wife to whom the minister dared open his
heart, and I think he found me a godsend. All I really did was to look
from one to the other and put in here and there an inciting comment or
ask an understanding question. After he had told me his situation and
the difficulties which confronted him and his small church, he exclaimed
suddenly:

"A minister should by rights be a leader, not only inside of his church,
but outside it in the community."

"You are right," I exclaimed with great earnestness; "you are right."

And with that I told him of our own Scotch preacher and how he led and
moulded our community; and as I talked I could see him actually growing,
unfolding, under my eyes.

"Why," said I, "you not only ought to be the moral leader of this
community, but you are!"

"That's what I tell him," exclaimed his wife.

"But he persists in thinking, doesn't he, that he is a poor sinner?"

"He thinks it too much," she laughed.

"Yes, yes," he said, as much to himself as to us, "a minister ought to
be a fighter!"

It was beautiful, the boyish flush which now came into his face and the
light that came into his eyes. I should never have identified him with
the Black Spectre of the afternoon.

"Why," said I, "you ARE a fighter; you're fighting the greatest battle
in the world today--the only real battle--the battle for the spiritual
view of life."

Oh, I knew exactly what was the trouble with his religion--at least the
religion which, under the pressure of that church he felt obliged to
preach! It was the old, groaning, denying, resisting religion. It was
the sort of religion which sets a man apart and assures him that the
entire universe in the guise of the Powers of Darkness is leagued
against him. What he needed was a reviving draught of the new faith
which affirms, accepts, rejoices, which feels the universe triumphantly
behind it. And so whenever the minister told me what he ought to be--for
he too sensed the new impulse--I merely told him he was just that. He
needed only this little encouragement to unfold.

"Yes," said he again, "I am the real moral leader here."

At this I saw Mrs. Minister nodding her head vigorously.

"It's you," she said, "and not Mr. Nash, who should lead this
community."

How a woman loves concrete applications. She is your only true
pragmatist. If a philosophy will not work, says she,