Calvary Church before.

Philip had not announced his subject, but there was an expectation on
the part of many that he was going to denounce the saloon. In the two
months that he had been preaching in Milton he had attracted great
attention. His audience this morning represented a great many different
kinds of people. Some came out of curiosity. Others came because the
crowd was going that way. So it happened that Philip faced a truly
representative audience of Milton people. As his eye swept over the
house he saw four of the six members of his church who were up for
office at the coming election in two weeks.

For an hour Philip spoke as he had never spoken in all his life before.
His subject, the cause it represented, the immense audience, the entire
occasion caught him up in a genuine burst of eloquent fury, and his
sermon swept through the house like a prairie fire driven by a high
gale. At the close, he spoke of the power of the Church compared with
the saloon, and showed how easily it could win the victory against any
kind of evil if it were only united and determined.

"Men and women of Milton, fathers, mothers and citizens," he said, "this
evil is one which cannot be driven out unless the Christian people of
this place unite to condemn it and fight it, regardless of results. It
is too firmly established. It has its clutch on business, the municipal
life, and even the Church itself. It is a fact that the Church in Milton
have been afraid to take the right stand in this matter. Members of the
churches have become involved in the terrible entanglement of the
long-established rum-power, until to-day you witness a condition of
affairs which ought to stir the righteous indignation of every citizen
and father. What is it you are enduring? An institution which blasts