beginning with her dressing-room, when before her mirror she donned her
new and very pretty silk dress and arranged all her faultless toilet,
adjusting the modish hat that became so well her own type of beauty,
fitted on the fresh, dainty gloves that should clasp her beloved music
when she should open her throat and sing like a glad bird, delighting
in its song, however plaintive. And then she had gone. Had she
thought of Him in all this? Winifred's honest soul said, No. But
church? She had thought of "church," with all that it stood for of
building, and congregation, and set order of things, and there had been
a sort of subconscious satisfaction in the fact that going to church
was a religious thing to do, and that to sing in the choir (especially
for no pay, as she did) was very meritorious. But was it so?

The minister was saying:

"If worship is not sincere, it becomes, spiritually, an abomination.
If, for instance, our singing, instead of being a true sacrifice of
praise to God degenerates into the sensuous enjoyment of a 'concourse
of sweet sounds,' it is no longer worship, and it is not even an
innocent employment. However fine it may be as a musical
entertainment, if offered as a _substitute for worship_ it may be
likened to the offering of 'strange fire,' which met such instant
judgment in the time of Moses."

Winifred winced under the clear, bold words. There was a little
well-bred stir in the congregation. Doctor Schoolman's disciplined
countenance betrayed a startled moment and then relapsed into an
expression of bland, but non-committal interest. Winifred glanced
about to see how her neighbors were taking it. She looked first at
George Frothingham, for he and she were unusually good friends. His