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Dixon, Thomas, 1864-1946

"The One Woman"

He read it slowly, beautifully, and with
exquisite tenderness.
While they sang he sat with his elbow on the little table on which
stood a vase of roses, his face resting thoughtfully on his left
hand, studying the people, his soul on fire with the sense of their
infinite needs.
Crouching low in his seat under the left gallery, he saw a man who
had confessed a great wrong and was searching for peace.
At a post on the right, in a seat where he had been accustomed
to see a working-girl for the past two years, a stranger sat. The
girl was found dead in her room the week before. She had lost her
place because she wore shabby clothes, and she wore shabby clothes
because she had been sending her earnings to her home in Connecticut,
supporting an aged father, mother and a worthless brother.
The rich, the poor, the old, the young, the outcast, the publican
and sinner, the strange woman and the sweet face of innocent girlhood
were there looking up at him for guidance and help.
But outnumbering all were massed rows of clean-faced young men whom
his enthusiasm had drawn resistlessly. His heart went out to them
in yearning sympathy, fighting their battles in the morning of life
with the powers and princes of the spirit world for the mastery of
the soul.


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