"Haven't the remotest idea."
"He's a great orator if he is an anarchist. He made the cold chills run down my back."
"Yes, I'm just wondering how many more such firebrands of eloquence could be found in this swaying forest of nobodies."
He watched the sneering faces of the policemen as they demanded silence of the crowd. They couldn't understand what the fools were cheering about. They had instructions to pull the whole "show" at a nod from the censor. But he had deemed it as harmless as a Sunday-school picnic. The words of the orator had rolled from his uniform like water from a duck's back.
The next speaker devoted his time to a fierce denunciation of the church, and ended with a bitter denial of the existence of God.
When the last echoes of the cheers had died away there was a stir near the stand and Stuart saw the stalwart figure of Dr. Woodman suddenly rise. He lifted his arm over the crowd, demanding silence.
Stuart could see that his old friend was deeply moved. His big hands were trembling and his voice vibrant with emotion as he stepped to the edge of the platform and faced the crowd. Among the five thousand people who stood within ear shot at least a hundred recognized him and gave a hearty cheer.
The doctor plunged at once into the message with which his heart was quivering:
"Let no man tell you, my friends, that the God of our fathers is a myth. You can't lose faith in God because you have not lost faith in eternal justice. This faith is just coming into conscious existence in the hearts of millions. By this sign we know that a new age is born. Poets and artists no longer gaze into heaven. Their eyes are fixed on earth. Men have ceased to long for another world, therefore their hope is now for this one. To bring Justice and Beauty to pass on this earth in wisdom and fearlessness of Death—this is the new creed of the people!
"My friends, no such people ever lived in history before. This continent has been the great white plain of eternity on which the chains of ages have been broken, freeing the human soul and body at one stroke, placing in men's hands, the mighty weapon of progress and defense—universal suffrage. The workingman of to-day lives better than the kings of the Middle Ages. Have patience, my friends, the workingman of to-morrow will be the heir of all the knowledge, of all the pain and all the glory of the centuries.