econd verse. The gallery
heard--it hated hysterics--and considered whether it should look upon
itself as cheated and protest, or submit quietly to being coerced into
approval. The scales had not yet turned, when someone far aloft drew a
long breath in order to force it out between closed teeth, and this in
sign of disapproval. That one breath was, in truth, indrawn, but whether
or no there was ever an outlet for the same remained a question with the
audience. A woollen cap was deftly and unexpectedly thrust between the
malevolent lips and several pair of hands held it there until the little
singer left the stage.

What appeal, if any, that childish voice, dwelling melodiously on the
simple words, made to the audience as a whole, cannot be stated because
unknown; but that it appealed powerfully by force of suggestion, by the
power of imagination, by the law of association, by the startling
contrast between the sentiment expressed and the environment of that
expression, to three, at least, among the many present is a certainty.

There is such a thing in our national life--a constant process, although
often unrecognized--as social anastomosis: the intercommunication by
branch of every vein and veinlet of the politico-social body, and
thereby the coming into touch of lives apparently alien. As a result we
have a revelation of new experiences; we find ourselves in subjection to
new influences of before unknown personalities; we perceive the
opening-up of new channels of communication between individual and
individual as such. We comprehend that through it a great moral law is
brought into operation both in the individual and the national life. And
in recognition of this natural, though oft hidden process, the fact that
to three men in that audience--men whose life-lines, to all appearance,
were divergent, whose aims and purposes were antipodal--the simple song
made powerful appeal, and by means of that appeal they came in after
life to comprehend something of the workings of this great natural law,
need cause no wonderment, no cavilling at the so-called prerogative of
fiction. The laws of Art are the laws of Life, read smaller on the
obverse.

The child was singing the last stanza in so profound a silence that the
fine snapping of an over-charged electric wire was distinctly heard:

"Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved
And we must love him too,
And trust in his redeeming blood,
And try his works to do."