are all gods. Nothing but the divine spark in those men
would hold them as they are held in faith and hope and fellowship. Look
at them," he lifted his face as one seeing Heavenly legions, "ten
thousand souls, men and women and children, cheated for years of their
rights, and when they ask for them in peace, beaten and clubbed and
killed, and still they do not raise their hands in violence! Oh, I tell
you, they are getting ready--the time must be near." He shook his head
in exultation and waved his iron claw.

Laura said gently, "Yes, Grant, but the day always is near. Whenever two
or three are gathered--"

"Oh, yes--yes," he returned, brushing her aside, "I know that. And it
has come to me lately that the day of the democracy is a spiritual and
not a material order. It must be a rising level of souls in the world,
and the mere dawn of the day will last through centuries. But it will be
nonetheless beautiful because it shall come slowly. The great thing is
to know that we are all--the wops and dagoes and the hombres and the
guinnies--all gods! to know that in all of us burns that divine spark
which environment can fan or stifle--that divine spark which makes us
one with the infinite!" He threw his face upward as one who saw a vision
and cried: "And America--our America that they think is so sordid, so
crass, so debauched with materialism--what fools they are to think it!
From all over the world for three hundred years men and women have been
hurrying to this country who above everything else on earth were charged
with aspiration. They were lowly people who came, but they had high
visions; this whole land is a crucible of aspirations. We are the most
sentimental people on earth. No other land is like it, and some day--oh,
I know God is charging this battery full of His divine purpose for some
great marvel. Some time America will rise and show her face and the
world will know us as we are!"

The girl, with eyes fascinated by her engagement ring, scarcely
understood what the man was saying. She was too happy to consider
problems of the divine immanence. There was a little mundane talk of
Kenyon and of the Nesbits and then the women went away.

An hour later an old man sitting in the dusk with a pencil in his left
hand, was startled to see these two women descending upon him, to tell
him the news. He kissed them both with his withered lips, and rubbed the
soft cheek of the maiden against his old gray beard.

And when t