Considered from an entirely detached point of view, the sermon was a thing of exceeding beauty. Inez should have been satisfied. The old preacher had a fine voice and he spoke without notes. Many a noted interpreter of the gospel might have envied him his control of voice and language. The text was one of the most intriguing in the Bible. "Jesus said, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more. But ye see me. Because I live, ye shall live also." Around about this, Mr. Fowler wove picture after picture of passionate faith in an hereafter. He told of the death of his own father, who with the death-rattle in his throat had sat erect in his bed crying, "O Christ, I see your face at last!" He told of hardened criminals who had heard God's voice in their dreams. He told of children, who like little Samuel had been called by the Almighty in a voice as articulate as that of their own fathers. He told of the authenticity of the Biblical history of Christ and of the scientific explanations of Christ's miracles. He told of the faith of the ancestors of the people of Lost Chief, a faith which had led them across the Atlantic and through those first terrible years on the bleak New England shores. He concluded with a prayer for the return of the sheep to the fold, a prayer delivered with tears pouring down his weather-beaten cheeks, a prayer delivered in anguish of spirit and in a voice of heart-moving sincerity. At the end, he sank into his chair by the table and covered his eyes with his shaking hand. Lost Chief sat silent for a moment, then Grandma Brown said in a quavering voice, "Let us sing _Rock of Ages_." But only she knew the words, and after a single verse she stopped, in some embarrassment. Charleton coughed, yawned and rose. The little congregation followed him out into the yard, where horses and dogs were milling the half-melted snow into yellow muck. "Well, Grandma," asked Charleton as he helped the old lady into her saddle, "what did you think of the sermon?" "A pretty good sermon!" replied Grandma. "Made me feel like a girl again." "My gawd, Grandma," exclaimed Charleton, "do you mean to say that an old Indian fighter like you swallowed that stuff!" "I was believing that stuff before you were born, Charleton! If Fowler is going to keep this pace up, I'll say I'm sorry I ever called him a sissy. What did you think of it, Peter?" Peter was leaning thoughtfully against his horse. "It was interesting. Ethics, as such, are too cold to interest most folks. So we sugar-coat 'em with flowery speech and sleight-of-hand and try to give 'em authority with a big threat. Then some hard-head like Charleton says, because the sugar-coating is silly, that there is nothing to ethics. Which is where he talks like a fool." He whistled to Sister and trotted homeward. There was considerable elation in Doug's cabin that evening. The preacher said little but old Johnny was in fine fettle.