"Well, I won't," replied Philip, with a laugh. "Better trim your wings,
Sarah; they're dragging on the floor."

He hunted up his hat, which was one of the things Philip could never
find twice in the same place, kissed his wife, and went out to make the
visit at the mill which he was getting ready to make when Mr. Winter
called.

To his surprise, when he went down through the business part of the
town, he discovered that his sermon of Sunday had roused almost every
one. People were talking about it on the street--an almost unheard-of
thing in Milton. When the evening paper came out it described in
sensational paragraphs the Reverend Mr. Strong's attack on the wealthy
sinners of his own church, and went on to say that the church "was very
much wrought up over the sermon, and would probably make it
uncomfortable for the reverend gentleman." Philip wondered, as he read,
at the unusual stir made because a preacher of Christ had denounced an
undoubted evil.

"Is it, then," he asked himself, "such a remarkable piece of news that a
minister of the gospel has preached from his own pulpit against what is
without question an unchristian use of property? What is the meaning of
the church in society unless it is just that? Is it possible that the
public is so little accustomed to hear anything on this subject that
when they do hear it it is in the nature of sensational news?"

He pondered over these questions as he quietly but rapidly went along
with his work. He was conscious as the days went on that trouble was
brewing for him. This hurt him in a way hard to explain; but his
sensitive spirit felt the cut like a lash on a sore place.