"—The best possible frame of mind for getting wisdom," replied Mr. Alden. "I wish my people would only come to church in it! Well, I hope Mr. Graeme is not going to shut the public out; and then you and I can go together to hear him."
Roland's face had again lighted up with pleasure. "I believe it's to be an open meeting," he said. "Of course there's no reason for excluding the public, and I think they want to make a little by it. I'll ask 'Brother' Dunning, and let you know."
"You all call each other 'Brother,' in the order, do you?" asked Mr. Alden.
"Yes, 'Brother' or 'Sister,' as the case may be," he replied smiling. "It seems to be quite a matter of course, when you get used to it."
"Mr. Graeme," said Nora, as they walked together to the place of meeting, "would you mind telling me just why you became a 'Knight of Labor'?"
"Not in the least," he said. "It is very simple. I felt, as I think no entirely unprejudiced person can help feeling nowadays, that our working-classes do not get fair play in the great struggle going on about us; that here the 'battle' is emphatically 'to the strong,' and that the weaker are being, perforce, driven to the wall,—crushed beneath the great iron wheels of Progress, Capital, Combination, and Protection. And I always had an instinctive sympathy with the 'under dog in the fight.' Ever since, as a boy, I read Spenser's 'Faërie Queen,' it seemed to me the noblest task a man could devote himself to,—the fighting the battles of the weak against selfish tyrants,
'To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,'
or whatever corresponds to that in our prosaic age."
"Yes," said Nora, warmly, "but why, for that end, did you need to become a 'Knight' of that description?"
"For two reasons," he replied. "First, because the only way to thoroughly understand their position seemed to me to become one of them, as it were; to comprehend their feelings, aspirations, aims. And, secondly, because I think they need, above all things, some intelligent help and guidance from within. They are so apt to grow wrong-headed and unjust, simply from the perpetual pressure of the hardships of their position. Although I can honestly say, too, that I have often been deeply impressed by the patience and moderation that they show in very trying circumstances. I seldom attend one of their mass-meetings without feeling deeply touched by the vague, wistful sense of the possibilities toward which they are groping, burdened with a sense of tremendous difficulties in the way, and of their own inability to cope with them. And I often wish I could only inspire a whole army of intelligent, energetic, educated young men to take up their cross and help them to win the day. It would be the salvation, it seems to me, not only of this country, but, in a great measure, of the human race!"