The merchant trembled and his lips quivered at mention of his son, but
he replied:

"I cannot do what you want, Mr. Strong. But you can count on my sympathy
if you make the fight." Philip finally went away, his soul tossed on a
wave of mountain proportions, and growing more and more crested with
foam and wrath as the first Sunday of the month drew near, and he
realized that the battle was one that he must wage single-handed in a
town of fifty thousand people.

He was not so destitute of support as he thought. There were many
mothers' hearts in Milton that had ached and prayed in agony long years
that the Almighty would come with his power and sweep the curse away.
But Philip had not been long enough in Milton to know the entire
sentiment of the people. He had so far touched only the Church, through
its representative pulpits, and a few of the leading business men, and
the result had been almost to convince him that very little help could be
expected from the public generally. He was appalled to find out what a
tremendous hold the whisky men had on the business and politics of the
place. It was a revelation to him of their power. The whole thing seemed
to him like a travesty of free government, and a terrible commentary on
the boasted Christianity of the century.

So when he walked into the pulpit the first Sunday of the month he felt
his message burning in his heart and on his lips as never before. It
seemed beyond all question that if Christ was pastor of Calvary Church
he would speak out in plain denunciation of the whisky power. And so,
after the opening part of the service, Philip rose to speak, facing an
immense audience that overflowed the galleries and invaded the choir and
even sat upon the pulpit platform. Such a crowd had never been seen in