thing of a million
or two in London, felt a sudden, and, as it seemed to them, somewhat
unaccountable obligation to give an equally plain answer to it. What was
the answer to be?

"Yes or no?"

It certainly was a very serious matter to millions who had never thought
of asking the question for themselves, and whose pastors and spiritual
masters had mostly contented themselves with lecturing and teaching in
soul-soothing, instead of soul-searching, words.

They, good folk, had really never troubled themselves very much about
the matter. They had their business affairs to attend to, their wives
and families to keep out of the workhouse or to maintain in comfort or
luxury, as the case might be, and a good many of them had certain social
duties to perform; and so they had got into the way of letting the
churches and chapels, the bishops, priests, deacons and so forth, look
after these things.

They were paid to do so. That was rather an ugly thought. At least, it
seemed to be so, after reading the words of Jesus Christ, and His
servant Vane Maxwell; but still it _was_ a fact; and some of them were
very highly paid. They were living in charming houses and had very
comfortable investments in companies which made money anyhow, so long as
they made it. Others were wretchedly paid, it was true, mostly
half-starved and inevitably in debt; but still, neither of these facts
affected the main question, which, of course, was the personal one: Are
you--rich man or poor man--you who read these words, a Christian? Are
you, as the preacher had asked in those five terrible words, honest
before God and man?

Then to the scores and hundreds of thousands of people who read this,
came, in a whispering terror, the further question:

"Do you think you can cheat God, even if you are cheating yourself and
other people like you--the God Whom you have been taught to believe in
as knowing all things, the God to whom all secrets are known?"

It was a distinctly ugly question to answer, and more Bibles were
searched throughout the United Kingdom than had been for many a long
year past; but no searcher found any answer that satisfied his own soul,
if he had one, save the one that was given from the Mount of Olives:

"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."

As the young preacher had said, there was no compromise. There was
certainly the alternative of being honest one way or the other; but that
sort of honesty had a very appalling prospect to the re