I felt that the city was a great beast in some vast
arena of time, that I was alone, naked and unarmed, on the sands,
struggling with it for the life of the people, while my enemies
looked on. As never before, I heard the rush of its half-crazed
millions, its crash and roar, saw its fierce brutality, its lust,
its cruelty, its senseless scramble for pleasure, its indifference
to truth, its millions of to-day but a symbol of the millions
gone before and the trampling millions to come, and I felt I was
a failure. I felt that I was pitching straws against a hurricane,
only to find them blown back into my face. I came down out of that
pulpit with the weariness of a thousand years crushing my tired
body and soul, feeling that I could never speak again, or struggle
against the tide any more--that I was broken, bruised and done for
all time, and I came home feeling so--"
He paused a moment and a sigh caught his voice. His wife's face
had softened and a tear was quivering on her long eyelashes.
"I came home thus worn out to-night hoping for a word of cheer,
yet knowing it would be days before I could recover from the sheer
nerve-agony I had endured. What a reception you have given me! And
for what? A beautiful woman stopped to tell me my message had not
been in vain, that it had made for her a light on life's way, and
that the prayers in which I had tried to realise as my own, the
people's thoughts and hopes and fears had been a revelation to her,
and because I smiled--"
His wife was again staring at him with the glitter of jealousy.
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