The speaker was young--about Tom's age--and with a look on his florid
face and a sound in his voice so like that of the dead man that Daisy
half started to her feet when he first took his stand in front of her
and announced the opening hymn. His text was: "Why stand ye here all the
day idle?" and so well did he handle it, and so forcible were his
gestures and eloquent his style of delivery, that Daisy listened to him
spellbound, her eyes fixed intently upon his glowing face and her ears
drinking in every word he uttered.

After dwelling for a time upon the loiterers in God's vineyard, the
idlers from choice, who worked not for lack of an inclination to do so,
he spoke next of the class whose whole life was a weariness for want of
something to do, and to these he said: "Have you never read how, when
the disciples rebuked the grateful woman for wasting upon her Master's
head what might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the
poor, Jesus said unto them, 'The poor ye have with you always,' and is
it not so, my hearers? Are there no poor at your door to be fed, no
hungry little ones to be cared for out of the abundance which God has
only loaned you for this purpose? Are there no wretched homes which you
can make happier, no aching hearts which a kind word would cheer?
Remember there is a blessing pronounced for even the cup of cold water,
and how much greater shall be the reward of those who, forgetting
themselves, seek the good of others and turn not away from the needy and
the desolate. See to it, then, you to whom God has given much. See to it
that you sit not down in idle ease, wasting upon yourself alone the
goods designed for others, for to whom much is given of him much shall
be required."

Attracted, perhaps, by the deep black of Daisy's attire, or the