reach the throng engulfed the pavements and overflowed into the
streets between the curbs, mingling with the mass of cars, cabs,
trucks and wagons. On either side towered the interminable miles
of business houses whose nerves and arteries reach to the limits
of the known world, savage and civilised. Behind those fronts sat
the engineers of industry with their hands on the throttles of the
world's machinery, their keen eyes and ears alert to every sound
of danger in the ceaseless roar around them.

Shadowy and far away seemed the Spirit world from those hurrying,
rushing, cursing, struggling men. And yet the earth was quivering
beneath them with the shock of spiritual forces. The age of miracles
was only dawning.

He felt like climbing to the tower of one of those great temples
of trade and shouting to the throng to lift up their heads from
the stones below and beyond the line of towering steel and granite
see the Glory of God. And as he thought how little that crowd would
heed it if he did, he felt himself in the grip of Titanic forces
of Nature sweeping through time and eternity, and that he was but
an atom tossed by their fury.

As he passed the City Hall his eye rested on the towering castles
of the metropolitan newspapers. He could feel in the air the throb
of their presses, the whir of their wheels within wheels telling
the story of a day's life, wet with tears of hope and love, or
poisoned with slander and falsehood, their minarets and domes the
flaming signs in the sky of a new power in history, a menace to
the life of the ancient Church and its priesthood. Was this power
a threat to human liberty, or the highest expression of its hope?