Friendship was without doubt a churchgoing community,—the different denominations could all boast of creditable congregations on Sunday mornings,—but on the occasion of Dr. Hollingsworth's visit, the other churches had a mere handful to divide between them, while at the Presbyterian church chairs had to be placed in the aisles. Such an unusual event afforded a pleasing variety in the customary Sabbath monotony. Something of a festive air pervaded the assembly.
Celia Fair and Miss Betty Bishop, both deserters from the Episcopal church, chanced to be seated together. Rosalind's urgent invitation to come and hear our president preach, had brought Celia, and it was, of course, for old friendship's sake that Miss Betty was there.
"Isn't that Mrs. Whittredge?" she whispered to Celia, as Allan with his mother and Rosalind passed up the aisle. "I don't know when she has been at church before." Then at sight of Mrs. Molesworth Miss Betty gave a slight shrug.
A flutter of interested anticipation was noticeable when Dr. Pierce entered the pulpit accompanied by the stranger, and it must be confessed that the service preceding the sermon was gone through with perfunctorily by the greater part of the congregation. After the notices for the week had been given, there was a general settling back and recalling of wandering attention as Dr. Hollingsworth came forward and stood in the pastor's place at the desk.
Mrs. Molesworth twisted her neck in an endeavor to see if he had notes; Colonel Parton decided promptly that here was no orator; Belle smiled at Rosalind across the aisle, thinking of the detective.
In the president's gaze, as it rested upon the assembly, was the same genial kindliness that had attracted Belle when she first met him on Main Street. It seemed to draw his audience closer to him, to make of it a circle of friends. His manner was simple, his tone almost conversational. At the announcement of his text Celia leaned forward with a sudden conviction that here was a message for her:—
"It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom."
Varied were the opinions afterward expressed of the sermon that followed. What Celia carried away with her was something like this:—
"I shall speak to you this morning," he said, "upon a subject that touches each one of us very nearly, from the oldest to the youngest; for whatever our circumstances, whether we are rich or poor, learned or simple, whether our lot is cast in protected homes or in the midst of the world's great battle-field, our task is one and the same: to become citizens of the Kingdom of God. This being so, we cannot think too often or too much about this Kingdom, or inquire too minutely into its laws, or ask ourselves too earnestly why it is that so few of us accept the gift in anything like its fulness.
"Although it is offered as a gift, there are conditions to be fulfilled, difficulties to be overcome. Our Lord recognized this when He said that the gate was strait and the way narrow, but He also said that this Kingdom was worth any price, or was beyond all price, to be obtained at any sacrifice. He emphasized this by a strong figure. It was better to enter into life maimed, He said,—with hand or foot cut off—rather than to miss life altogether.... The conditions of entrance into the Kingdom are apparently so simple it is strange we find them so difficult. I think they may be sifted down to two: love and faith,—the love from which service springs, the faith that means joy and peace. If we are to be the children of our Heavenly Father we must love, and we must have in our hearts that joy which grows out of trust.