That seems to the careless soul
such a _non sequitur_, as if peace was asked for, only because there
was none other to fight; but to the man heavily laden, what a cry out
of the depths! Because there is none other--all resources gone, all
possibilities: but one that fighteth for us, standing fast, always the
champion of the perplexed, the overborne, the weak. John was a little
careless in this respect, as so many young men are. He thought most of
the music when he joined the fashionable throng in the Temple Church.
But there was no music to speak of at Windyhill. There was more sound of
the bees outside, and the birds and the sighing bass of the fir-trees
than of anything more carefully concerted. The organ was played with a
curious drone in it, almost like that of the primitive bagpipe. But
there was that one phrase, a strong strain of human appeal, enough to
lift the world, nay, to let itself go straight to the blue heavens:
"Because there is none other that fighteth for us but only Thou, O God."

Mr. Hudson preached his little sermon like a discord in the midst. What
should he have preached it for, that little sermon, which was only
composed because he could not help himself, which was about nothing in
heaven or earth? John gave it a sort of partial attention because he
could not help it, partly in wonder to think how a sensible man like Mr.
Hudson could account to himself for such strange little interruption of
the natural sequence of high human emotion. What theory had he in his
mind? This was a question John was fond of putting to himself, with
perhaps an idea peculiar to a lawyer, that every man must be thinking
what he is about, and be able to produce a clear reason, and, as it
were, some theory of the meaning of his own actions--which everybody
must know is nonsense. For the Rector of course preached just because it
was in his day's work, and the people would have been much surprised,
though possibly much relieved, had he not done so--feeling that to
listen was in the day's work too, and to be gone through doggedly as a
duty. John thought how much better it would be to have some man who
could preach now and then when he had something to say, instead of
troubling the Rector, who, good man, had nothing. But it is not to be
supposed that he was thinking this consecutively while the morning
went on. It flitted through his mind from time to time among his many
thinkings about the Compton family and Elinor; poor Nelly