le smiled at
Rosalind across the aisle, thinking of the detective.

In the president's gaze, as it rested upon the assembly, was the same
genial kindliness that had attracted Belle when she first met him on Main
Street. It seemed to draw his audience closer to him, to make of it a
circle of friends. His manner was simple, his tone almost conversational.
At the announcement of his text Celia leaned forward with a sudden
conviction that here was a message for her:--

"It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom."

Varied were the opinions afterward expressed of the sermon that followed.
What Celia carried away with her was something like this:--

"I shall speak to you this morning," he said, "upon a subject that touches
each one of us very nearly, from the oldest to the youngest; for whatever
our circumstances, whether we are rich or poor, learned or simple, whether
our lot is cast in protected homes or in the midst of the world's great
battle-field, our task is one and the same: to become citizens of the
Kingdom of God. This being so, we cannot think too often or too much about
this Kingdom, or inquire too minutely into its laws, or ask ourselves too
earnestly why it is that so few of us accept the gift in anything like its
fulness.

"Although it is offered as a gift, there are conditions to be fulfilled,
difficulties to be overcome. Our Lord recognized this when He said that
the gate was strait and the way narrow, but He also said that this
Kingdom was worth any price, or was beyond all price, to be obtained at
any sacrifice. He emphasized this by a strong figure. It was better to
enter into life maimed, He said,--with hand or foot cut off--rather than
to miss life altogether.... The conditions of entrance into the Kingdom
are apparently so simple it is strange we find them so difficult. I think
they may be sifted down to two: love and faith,--the love from which
service springs, the faith that means joy and peace. If we are to be the
children of our Heavenly Father we must love, and we must have in our
hearts that joy which grows out of trust.

"Jesus said, 'Seek first the Kingdom of God.' If we do this we need
concern ourselves with nothing else, and by concern I mean burden
ourselves. The daily round--the vast machinery of life--must go on, but
after all only he who belongs to the Kingdom is fitted to meet its
problems. He brings to them a calm confidence, a clear vision. His heart
does not beat qu