"Thou shalt deliver me from the strivings of the people: and thou shalt
make me the head of the heathen."

And the reply:

"A people whom I have not known shall serve me."

The working-man next to Alison had no prayer-book. She thrust her own
into his hand, and they read from it together . . . .

When they came to the second hymn the woman in front of her had
wonderfully shed her vulgarity. Her voice--a really good one--poured
itself out:

"See a long race thy spacious courts adorn,
See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies."

Once Alison would have been critical of the words She was beyond that,
now. What did it matter, if the essential Thing were present?

The sermon was a surprise. And those who had come for excitement,
for the sensation of hearing a denunciation of a class they envied and
therefore hated, and nevertheless strove to imitate, were themselves
rebuked. Were not their standards the same? And if the standard were
false, it followed inevitably that the life was false also.

Hodder fairly startled these out of their preconceived notions of
Christianity. Let them shake out of their minds everything they had