"Brother Anderson will lead in prayer," announced the Elder in unctuous tones. "Let us stand, please!" The congregation stood. But Brother Anderson’s leadership in prayer could not be deemed very successful. He led as if he himself were lost. His prayer appeared to partake of the nature of an apology to God for what the petitioner hoped was about to be done. During the length of these whining orisons, the congregation grew impatient. The gallery in spots sat down. The effect of the prayer was in total no more than a dismal thickening of the gloom of tragedy that hung lower and lower over the meeting. Yet once the prayer was ended, Elder Burbeck baldly declared the object of the meeting. His manner was strained, his voice was harsh and halting, but he began stubbornly and plodded forward doggedly, gradually laboring himself into the hectic fervor of his assumed position as the instrument of God to purge All People’s of its pastor. Yet it was in keeping with the tenseness of the situation that as the emotions of the vehement apostle of the _status quo_ reached their height, his words became rather less florid, and he concluded in sentences of sycophantic calm and tones of solicitous consideration for the feelings of the piece of riff-raff he was about to brush aside with a sweep of his fiery fan. "There is before us," he assured his audience finally, "no question of the pastor’s guilt or innocence of the charges made. The question is one of expediency; as to what is best to do for the good name and the future usefulness of All People’s. The Board of Elders, after serious and prayerful consideration," Brother Burbeck’s voice whined a little as he said this, "has felt that it was best for the pastor and best for the interest of the church to ask him to resign quietly and immediately. That request has been emphatically declined. It has become our duty, painful as it is," the Elder sighed and twitched his red neck regretfully in his white collar, "to present to the congregation a resolution covering the situation. That resolution the clerk of the church will now read." But instead of looking at the clerk, the chairman looked at Elder Brooks. Those typewritten lines, the mere holding of which had given Elder Brooks that sense of importance which it was necessary for him to feel in order to be able to act decisively in a matter like this which went gravely against some of the instincts of his soft nature, were, by him now, with a final and supreme sense of this importance, passed to the clerk of the church, a fat, ageless, colorless looking man who read stolidly that: Whereas, the pastor of this congregation, John Hampstead, has been held to answer to the Superior Court of this County upon a charge of burglary and has been otherwise involved in public scandal in such manner that he appears either unable or unwilling to establish his innocence; and