The One Woman | Page 5

initiated into the joys of a Sunday sermon at 10 P. M., with his
wife in the pulpit. He has much to live for."
Her lips quivered and her eyes grew dim.
"Come, come, my dear; you know that I love you and that I am faithful
to you. But such words and scenes as these may destroy the tenderest
love at last. Words, even, are deeds."
"How philosophical! Quite like one of the epigrams of your chum,
Mark Overman, of whose cruel tongue you're so fond. I wonder you
don't make Mr. Overman a deacon in the new order of your church."
Gordon sank back into the chair and thoughtfully shaded his brow with
his hand, his face drawn into deep lines of weariness.

When she saw the look of pain in his face her eyes softened.
"What I fear of you, Frank, is not your intention, but your performance.
You mean well, but you never could resist a pretty woman."
"In a sense, no. If I could, I never would have married."
The faintest suggestion of a smile played about her eyes and then faded.
"I wonder what pretty speeches you said to the stranger to-night? You
have such charming manners with a woman."
He looked at her appealingly and she stared at him without reply.
"For God's sake, Ruth, end this scene. If you only knew how tired I am
to-night--tired in body, in heart and soul. I think the past week has been
the most trying of my whole life. It opened with a newspaper attack on
me inspired by Van Meter. You know how sensitive I am to such
criticism.
"Saturday came without a moment for preparation for the great crowds
I knew would be present to-day after that attack on me. Instead of work
yesterday, a procession of people, hungry and suffering, were at the
door from morning until night. All their burdens they poured out to me;
All their wrongs and grievances against God and man became mine.
"On Saturday night the trustee meeting was held to discuss our building
project. Van Meter led the opposition with skill. When I poured out my
soul's dream to them of a great temple of marble, a flaming centre of
Christian Democracy instead of the old brick barn we call a church--a
temple that would flash its glory from the sky above the sordid
materialism that is crushing the lives and hearts of men, telling in
marble song of God, of immortality, of faith and hope and love--they
stared at me in contempt until I felt the blood freeze in my veins. When
I drew a picture of its great auditorium thronged with thousands of
eager faces, Van Meter coolly interrupted me with the remark:
"'We don't want such trash elbowing our old parishioners out of their

pews. We've had too much of it already. With all your mob, the
pew-rents have fallen off.'
"My first impulse was that of Christ when he took a whip in the temple.
I wanted to knock him down. Instead, I rushed out of the house and left
him victorious.
"I waked this morning with the burden of all this week's horror choking
me, waked to the consciousness that in a few hours thousands of faces
would be looking up to me with hungry souls to be fed. Well, I had
nothing to give them except my own heart's blood, and so to-day I tore
my heart open for them to devour it. True, I didn't preach the Bible
except as its truth had passed into my own soul's experiences. When I
preach such sermons I always quit with the sense of utter helplessness,
exhaustion and failure. Could my bitterest enemy read my heart in that
hour he would cry out for pity.
"I never so felt the crushing burden of all that crowd of people as
to-day. I've heard so much of their sorrows and struggles the past week.
I felt that the city was a great beast in some vast arena of time, that I
was alone, naked and unarmed, on the sands, struggling with it for the
life of the people, while my enemies looked on. As never before, I
heard the rush of its half-crazed millions, its crash and roar, saw its
fierce brutality, its lust, its cruelty, its senseless scramble for pleasure,
its indifference to truth, its millions of to-day but a symbol of the
millions gone before and the trampling millions to come, and I felt I
was a failure. I felt that I was pitching straws against a hurricane, only
to find them blown back into my face. I came down out of that pulpit
with the weariness of a thousand years crushing my tired body and soul,
feeling that I could never speak again,