t
dare to say that there was a sentimental feeling for the pale face and
rapt expression of the devotee. It was more than that. He had just come
from some scene of suffering, from the bed of one dying; he was weary
with watching. He was faint with lonely vigils; he was visibly carrying
the load of the poor and the despised. Even Ruth Leigh, who had dropped
in for half an hour in one of her daily rounds--even Ruth Leigh, who had
in her stanch, practical mind a contempt for forms and rituals, and
no faith in anything that she could not touch, and who at times was
indignant at the efforts wasted over the future of souls concerning
which no one knew anything, when there were so many bodies, which had
inherited disease and poverty and shame, going to worldly wreck before
so-called Christian eyes--even she could scarcely keep herself from
adoring this self-sacrificing spirit. The woes of humanity grieved
him as they grieved her, and she used to say she did not care what he
believed so long as he gave his life for the needy.

It was when he advanced to the altar-rail to speak that the man best
appeared. His voice, which was usually low and full of melody, could be
something terrible when it rose in denunciation of sin. Those who had
traveled said that he had the manner of a preaching friar--the simple
language, so refined and yet so homely and direct, the real, the
inspired word, the occasional hastening torrent of words. When he had
occasion to address one of the societies of ladies for the promotion of
something among the poor, his style and manner were simplicity itself.
One might have said there was a shade of contempt in his familiar and
not seldom slightly humorous remarks upon society and its aims and
aspirations, about which he spoke plainly and vigorously. And this was
what the ladies liked. Especially when he referred to the pitifulness
of class distinctions, in the light of the example of our Lord, in our
short pilgrimage in this world. This unveiling and denunciation made
them somehow feel nearer to their work, and, indeed, while they sat
there, co-workers with this apostle of righteousness.

Perhaps there was something in the priestly dress that affected not only
the congregation in the chapel, but all the neighborhood in which Father
Damon lived. There was in the long robe, with its feminine lines, an
assurance to the women that he was set apart and not as others
were; and, on the other hand, the semi-feminine s