have listened to its simple and stately words, whose manhood and
womanhood have been carried over many a hard place by the lift of its
familiar sentences,--he spoke a prayer of that service which is less
dear only, to those bred in it, than the voices of their dearest. As a
priest begins to speak to his congregation he began, and the hearer in
the shadow of the gallery listened, awed:

"The Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before
Him."

And in the little church was silence as if all the earth obeyed. The
collect for the day came next, and a bit of jubilant Easter service, and
then his mind seemed to drift back to the sentences with which the
prayer-book opens.

"This is the day which the Lord hath made," the ringing voice announced.
"Let us rejoice and be glad in it." And then, stabbing into the girl's
fevered conscience, "I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever
before me." It was as if an inflexible judge spoke the words for her.
"When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, and doeth that
which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive," the pure,
stern tones went on.

She was not turning away from wickedness; she did not mean to turn away;
she would not do that which was lawful. The girl shivered. She could not
hear this dreadful accusal from the very pulpit. She must leave this
place. And with that the man, as if in a sudden passion of feeling, had
tossed his right hand high above him; his head was thrown back; his eyes
shone up into the shadows of the roof as if they would pierce material
things and see Him who reigned; he was pleading as if for his life,