Gradually he had gone beyond the tales of chivalry and the achievements of men. Gradually he had brought them up and up. Other men had preached to them, but their preaching had not been linked with lessons of living. Others had cried, "Repent," but not one of them had laid emphasis on the fact that repentance was evidenced by the life which followed.
But Roger stood among them, his young face grave, his wonderful voice persuasive, and told them what it meant to be—saved. Planting hope first in their hearts, he led them toward the Christ-ideal. Manhood, he said, at its best was godlike; one must have purity, energy, education, growth.
And they, who listened, began to see that it was a spiritual as well as practical thing to set their houses in order, to plant and to till and to make the soil produce. They saw in the future a community which was orderly and law-abiding, they saw their children brought out of the bondage of ignorance and into the freedom of knowledge. And they saw more than that—they saw the Vision, faintly at first, but with ever-increasing clearness.
It was a wonderful task which Roger had set for himself, and he threw himself into his work with flaming energy. He hired a buggy and a little fat horse, and spent some of his nights en route in the houses of his friends along the way; other nights—and these were the ones he liked best—he slept under the pines. With John Ballard's old Bible under his arm, and his prayer-book in his pocket, he went forth each week, and always he found a congregation ready and waiting.
Over the stretches of that barren country they came to hear him, sailing in their schooner-wagons toward the harbor of the hope which he brought to them.
When he had preached from his pulpit, he had talked to men and women of culture and he had spent much of his time in polishing a phrase, or in rounding out a sentence. But now he spent his time in search of the clear words which would carry his—message.
For Mary had said that every man who preached must have a message.
Mary!
How far she had receded from him. When he thought of her now it was with a sense of overwhelming loss. She had chosen to withdraw herself from him. In every letter he had seen signs of it—and he could not protest. No man in his position could say to a woman, "I will not let you go." He had nothing to offer her but his life in the pines, a life that could not mean much to such a woman.
But it meant much to himself. Gradually he had come to see that love alone could never have brought to him what his work was bringing. He had a sense of freedom such as one must have whose shackles have been struck off. He began to know now what Mary had meant when she had said, "I feel as if I were flying through the world on strong wings." He, too, felt as if he were flying, and as it his wings were carrying him up and up beyond any heights to which he had hitherto soared.