working-men who had been present and heard his sermon on
moving the church into the tenement district.

"I came to see you particularly, Mr. Strong, about getting you to come
down to our hall some evening next week and give us a talk on some
subject connected with the signs of the times."

"I'll come if you think I can do any good in that way," replied Philip,
hesitating a little.

"I believe you can. The men are beginning to take to you, and while they
won't come up to church, they will turn out to hear you down there."

"All right. When do you want me to come?"

"Say next Tuesday. You know where the hall is?"

Philip nodded. He had been by it in his walks through that part of
Milton.

The spokesman for the workmen expressed his thanks and arose to go, but
Philip asked him to stay a few moments. He wanted to know at first hand
what the man's representative fellows would do if the church should at
any time decide to act after Philip's plan.

"Well, to tell the truth, Mr. Strong, I don't believe very many of them
would join any church."

"That is not the question. Would they feel the church any more there
than where it is now?"

"Yes, I honestly think they would. They would come out to hear you."

"Well, that would be something, to be sure," replied Philip, smiling.
"But as to the wisdom of my plan--how does it strike you on the whole?"

"I would like to see it done. I don't believe I shall, though."

"Why?"

"Your church won't agree to it."

"Maybe they will in time."

"I hope they will. And yet let me tell you, Mr. Strong, if you succeeded
in getting your church and people to come into the tenement district, you
would find plenty of people there who wouldn't go hear you."

"I suppose that is so. But oh, that we might do something!" Philip
clasped his hand over his knee and gazed earnestly at the man opposite.
The man returned the gaze almost as earnestly. It was the
personification of the Church confronting the laboring man, each in a
certain way asking the other, "What will the Church do?" And it was a
noticeable fact that the minister's look revealed more doubt and anxiety
than the other man's look, which contained more or less of indifference
and distrust. Philip sighed, and his visitor soon after took his leave.

So it came about that Philip Strong plunged into a work which from the
time he stepped into the dingy little hall and faced the crowd peculiar
to it, had a growing influence on all hi