"But, you know, Mr. Jasper," she said, "when many violins play together, each taking a part in relation to all the rest, a much grander music is the result than any single instrument could produce." "I've heard tell of such things, miss, but I've never heard them." He had never been to concert or oratorio, any more than the play. "Then you shall hear them," said Mary, her heart filling with delight at the thought. "--But what if there should be some way in which the prayers of all souls may blend like many violins? We are all brothers and sisters, you know--and what if the gathering together in church be one way of making up a concert of souls?--Imagine one mighty prayer, made up of all the desires of all the hearts God ever made, breaking like a huge wave against the foot of his throne!" "There would be some force in a wave like that, miss!" said Joseph. "But answer me one question: Ain't it Christ that teaches men to pray?" "Surely," answered Mary. "He taught them with his mouth when he was on the earth; and now he teaches them with his mind." "Then, miss, I will tell you why it seems to me that churches can't be the places to tune the fiddles for that kind of consort--and that's just why I more than don't care to go into one of them: I never heard a sermon that didn't seem to be taking my Christ from me, and burying him where I should never find him any more. For the somebody the clergy talk about is not only nowise like my Christ, but nowise like a live man at all. It always seemed to me more like a guy they had dressed up and called by his name than the man I read about in my mother's big Testament." "How my father would have delighted in this man!" said Mary to herself.