and refused the duty. God in His mercy gave us
many warnings; but we hid our faces and pursued our selfish ends.
'Behold, the days come----'

"But God stayed His hand. England lies bloody but unbroken. There can be
no more warnings. The time for warnings has gone by. There can be no
more paltering. Now is the day of final choice. Will ye be men--or
helots and outcasts? Will you choose Duty, and the favour of God's
appointed way for us, of progress and of leadership; or will you
choose--pleasure, swift decay, annihilation? Upon your heads be it! Our
fathers nobly did their part. Upon your choice hangs the future of our
race, the fate of your children, the destiny of God's chosen people, who
have paltered with strange gods, blasphemed the true faith, and stepped
aside from the white path--the Only Way: Duty!"

He turned, raising one hand, and the notes of the great organ rose and
swelled mightily, filling the hall with the strains of the British
National Anthem. Every soul in the building stood erect, and following
the choir's lead, that great gathering sang the British hymn as it was
never sung before. As the last note throbbed into silence in the hall's
dome, George Stairs, who had knelt through the singing of the anthem,
advanced, with hand uplifted.

"God helping us, as, if we choose aright, He surely will help us, do we
choose Duty, or pleasure? Choose, my kinsmen! Is it Duty, or is it
pleasure?"

It was a severe test to put to such an assembly, to a congregation of
all classes of London society. There was a moment of silence in which I
saw George Stairs's face, white and writhen, through a mist which seemed
to cloud my vision. And then the answer came, like a long, rolling clap
of thunder:

"Duty!"

And I saw George Stairs fall upon his knees in prayer, as the Bishop
dismissed the people with a benediction, delivered somewhat brokenly, in
a hoarse voice.

VIII

THE PREACHERS

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who in love and truth
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot,
Who do thy work, and know it not:
O! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

_Ode to Duty._

It was with something of a shock that I learned, while endeavouring to
make my way through a dense crowd to the Canadian preacher's