ur
influence among us is very great. I have lived in Milton as boy and man
for thirty years, and I never knew so many laboring-men attend church
and the lectures in the hall as during the few months you have been
here. Your work here has not been a failure; it has been a great
success."

A tear stole out of Philip's eye and rolled down and fell with a warm
splash on the letter which lay beside him. If a $2,500 call could be
drowned by one tear, that professorship in Sociology in Fairview
Seminary was in danger.

"So you think the people in this neighborhood would miss me a little?"
he asked almost as modestly as if he were asking a great favor.

"Would they, Mr. Strong! You will never know what you have done for
them. If the mill-men were to hear of your leaving they would come down
here in a body and almost compel you to stay. I cannot bear to think of
your going. And yet the danger you are in, the whiskey men----"

Philip roused himself up, interrupting his visitor. The old-time flash
of righteous indignation shot out of his eyes as he exclaimed: "I am
more than half-minded to stay on that account! The rummies would think
they had beaten me out if I left!"

"Oh, Mr. Strong, I can't tell you how glad we would be if you would only
stay! And yet----"

"And yet," replied Philip, with a sad smile, "there are many things to
take into the account. I thank you out of my heart for the love you have
shown me. It means more than words can express." And Philip leaned back
with a wearied look on his face, which, nevertheless, revealed his deep
satisfaction at the thought of such friendship as this man had for him.

He was getting exhausted with the interview, following so soon on his
illness of the night before. The visitor was quick to notice it, and
after a warm clasp of hands he went away. Philip, lying there alone
while his wife was busy downstairs, lived an age in a few minutes. All
his life so far in Milton, the events of his preaching and his
experiences in the church, his contact with the workmen, his evident
influence over them, the thought of what they would feel in case he left
Milton to accept this new work, the dissatisfaction at the thought of an
unaccomplished work abandoned, the thought of the exultation of the
whiskey men--all this and much more surged in and out of his mind and
heart like heavy tides of a heaving ocean as it rushes into some deep
fissure and then flows back again with noise and power. He