"I am likely to spend the night on that canal boat," he added, "and in the morning Olaf will be ashamed and perhaps penitent. He may thank me and ask me to meet him at the factory gate next Monday night and walk home with him to make sure that his pay envelope gets safely past the door of intervening saloons."
"But why so much concern about unimportant people like that?" questioned Marien, her eyes big with curiosity and wonder.
"Any person in need is important to me," confessed John modestly.
"But how can you spare the time from the regular work of the church?"
"That is my regular work."
Marien paused a moment as if baffled.
"But—but I thought a minister's work was to preach—so eloquently that people will not get drunk; to pray, so earnestly that God will make men strong enough to resist temptation."
"But suppose," smiled John, "that I am God's answer to prayer, his means of helping Olaf to resist temptation. That is the mission of my church, at least that is my ideal for it; not a group of heaven-bound joy-riders, but a life-saving crew. There are twenty men in my church who would meet Olaf at a word from me and walk home with him every night till he felt able to get by the swinging doors upon his own will."
Marien's eyes were shining with a new light.
"That is practical religion," she declared.