pulpit, and had a foretaste of the effect of his own eloquence. Ravished
by the vision, he proceeded to write and rewrite the peroration. Every
other part he could trust to his own powers, and to the inspiration of
the theme, but the peroration he meant to make finer even than his
apostrophe on the cultivation of character, which hitherto had been the
high-water mark of his achievement.

At length he finished his task, but not before sunset, and he felt weary
and hungry. He ate and rested. In the complete relaxation of mental
strain, he understood all at once what he had done. He had decided to
remain in Kansas City. But to remain meant to meet Mrs. Hooper day after
day, to be thrown together with her even by her foolishly confiding
husband; it meant perpetual temptation, and at last--a fall! And yet God
had guided him to choose that sermon rather than the other. He had
abandoned himself passively to His guidance--could _that_ lead to
the brink of the pit?... He cried out suddenly like one in bodily
anguish. He had found the explanation. God cared for no half-victories.
Flight to Chicago must seem to Him the veriest cowardice. God intended
him to stay in Kansas City and conquer the awful temptation face to
face. When he realized this, he fell on his knees and prayed as he had
never prayed in all his life before. If entreated humbly, God would
surely temper the wind to the shorn lamb; He knew His servant's
weakness. "_Lead us not into temptation_," he cried again and
again, for the first time in his life comprehending what now seemed to
him the awful significance of the words. "_Lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil_"--thus he begged and wept. But
even when, exhausted in body and in mind, he rose from his knees, he had
found no comfort. Like a child, with streaming eyes and quivering
features, he stumbled upstairs to bed and fell asleep, repeating over
and over again mechanically the prayer that the cup might pass from him.