"Well, don't get discouraged; look to God; he can help you; and we'll
all pray for you. Come and hear our Brother French preach; I am sure
you will find the light. He is the best preacher in the city. Everybody
says so. Good-night."

The others had already gone. The sexton was turning out the lights,
and a moment later Dick found himself once more on the street, looking
with a grim smile on his hunger-pinched features, at the figure of the
Christ, wrought in the costly stained glass window. "One of the least
of these," he muttered hoarsely to himself. Then the figure and the
inscription slowly faded, as one by one the lights went out, until at
last it vanished and he seemed to hear his mother's voice: "I ax ye
fair--O Lord--take ker o' Dick--fer Jesus sake--Amen."

The door shut with a bang. A key grated in the heavy lock that guarded
the treasures of the church; and the footsteps of the church's humblest
servant died away in the distance, as Dick turned to move on again.

The city rumbled on with its business and its pleasure, its merriment
and crime. Guardians of the law protected the citizens by seeing to
it that no ill-dressed persons sat too long upon the depot benches,
sheltered themselves from the bitter wind in the open hall-way, or
looked too hungrily in at the bakery windows.

On the avenue the homes grew hushed and still, with now and then a
gleam of light from some library or sitting-room window, accompanied
by the tones of a piano or guitar,--or sound of laughing voices. And
the house of God stood silent, dark and cold, with the figure of the
Christ upon the window and the spire, like a giant hand, pointing