CHAPTER XII
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
When Gordon announced at the evening service that a million dollars
had been subscribed to the new "Temple of Man," and that he had
been constituted its sole trustee, the crowd burst into a storm of
applause.
In vain he raised his big muscular hand over the tumult.
Troops of young men and women with flushed faces, some laughing,
some crying, sprang from their seats, rushed to the platform and
seized his hand.
The strains of the national hymn suddenly burst from the crowd,
and they rose en masse singing it with triumphant peal. As its last
note died away a woman's voice started "Nearer, My God, to Thee,"
the people caught it instantly and its mighty chorus rolled
heavenward. The singing had in it the spontaneous rhythm of hearts
transported by resistless feeling. For half an hour they stood
and sang the old familiar hymns whose sentences were wet with the
tears and winged with the hopes and mysteries of their lives.
Instead of a sermon, Gordon read his resignation as pastor of the
Pilgrim Church.
And then, folding his hands behind him, in trumpet tones he cried:
"Next Sunday morning will be the last service I will ever conduct
in this church; the Sunday morning following, at eleven o'clock,
the first services of the 'Church of the Son of Man' will be held
in the old Grand Opera House.
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