vestibule of society, that
court of the Gentiles, but in the chamber of torture and the clouded
adytum of her own spiritual temple. For there a dark vapor had hid the
deity enthroned, until the words of His servant melted the gloom. Then
she saw that what she had taken for her own innermost chamber of awful
void, was the dwelling-place of the most high, most lovely, only One,
and through its windows she beheld a cosmos dawning out of chaos.
Therefore the wife walked beside the husband in the strength of a common
faith in absolute Good; and not seldom did the fire which the torch of
his prophecy had kindled upon her altar, kindle again that torch, when
some bitter wind of evil words, or mephitis of human perversity, or
thunder-rain of foiled charity, had extinguished it. She loved every
hair upon his head, but loved his well-being infinitely more than his
mortal life. A wrinkle on his forehead would cause her a pang, yet would
she a thousand times rather have seen him dead than known him guilty of
one of many things done openly by not a few of his profession.

And now, as one sometimes wonders what he shall dream to-night, she sat
wondering what new thing, or what old thing fresher and more alive than
the new, would this day flow from his heart into hers. The following is
the substance of what, a few hours after, she did hear from him. His
rector, sitting between Mrs. Bevis and Mrs. Ramshorn, heard it also. The
radiance of truth shone from Wingfold's face as he spoke, and those of
the congregation who turned away from his words were those whose lives
ran counter to the spirit of them. Whatever he uttered grew out of a
whole world of thought, but it grew before them--that is, he always
thought afresh in the presence of the people, and spoke extempore.

"'_Ye can not serve God and mammon_.'

"Who said this? The Lord by whose name ye are called, in whose name
this house was built, and who will at last judge every one of us. And
yet how many of you are, and have been for years, trying your very
hardest to do the thing your Master tells you is impossible! Thou man!
Thou woman! I appeal to thine own conscience whether thou art not
striving to serve God and mammon.

"But stay! am I right?--It can not be. For surely if a man strove hard
to serve God and mammon, he would presently discover the thing was
impossible. It is not easy to serve God, and it is easy to serve mammon;
if one strove to serve God, the hard thing, along w