"Ah, John is a wonderful man; Empire-taught, is John."
"And I suppose the man who has never lived the outside life in the big, open places can never——"
And then I think she saw what had brought the twinge of sadness to me; for she touched my arm, her bright eyes gleamed upon me, and—
"You're a terribly impatient man, Dick," she said, with a smile. "It seems to me you've trekked a mighty long way from The Mass office in—how many weeks is it?"
IX
THE CITIZENS
Serene will be our days, and bright
And happy will our nature be
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.
And they a blissful course may hold
Ev'n now, who, not unwisely bold,
Live in the spirit of this creed,
Yet find that other strength, according to their need.
Ode to Duty.
Charles Corbett's History of the Revival is to my mind the most interesting book of this century. There are passages in it which leave me marvelling afresh each time I read them, that any writer, however gifted, could make quite so intimate a revelation, without personal knowledge of the inside workings of the movement he describes so perfectly. But it is a fact that Corbett never spoke with Stairs or Reynolds, or Crondall; neither, I think, was he personally known to any member of the executive of The Citizens. Yet I know from my own working experience of the Revival, both in connection with the pilgrimage of the Canadian preachers and the campaign of The Citizens, that Corbett's descriptions are marvellously accurate and lifelike, and that the conclusions he draws could not have been made more correct and luminous if they had been written by the leaders of the great joint movement themselves.