stranger was to speak. He was just a trifle surprising in appearance,
for his coat had no ministerial cut, and was even a bit more suggestive
of business than of the profession of divinity. But he was soon
forgiven this; for his voice was even and pleasant, and he looked at
his congregation with a pair of frank blue eyes, while he spoke with
the simplicity of a man who has somewhat to say to his fellowmen and
says it honestly. His text excited no curiosity, for it was this:
"_The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth_."

In the choir Miss Winifred Gray had composed herself to listen.
Fortunately she was at the rear of her admiring hearers and had not to
confront their faces as she sat down. She had enjoyed her part
exceedingly. She loved her music, and the greater its pathos the
keener her enjoyment in rendering it. There was a subtle sense of
power, too, which she did not analyze, in moving a whole congregation
to admiration and sympathy. With her whole heart she had entered into
her musical work, in which the church divided attention with the
drawing-room and an occasional concert. She sat now in pleased triumph
and had no ears for the opening words of the young man's sermon. But
it dawned upon her gradually that he was speaking from the words, "in
spirit and in truth." He spoke of the former worship which dealt with
externals of place and method--with "carnal ordinances imposed until a
time of reformation"; and then of a new era of worship which Christ had
brought in, wherein true worshipers draw nigh to God, not with sensuous
offerings, but "in spirit and in truth."

Winifred could not follow all that he said, for it seemed a new and
strange language for the most part, but she gathered this: that somehow
Christ had opened the way for all believers into the very spiritual