“There’s more good in practising, I admit; still a sermon does sometimes come back to one—like Longfellow’s Arrow, don’t you know,” replied the clergyman. “But I must say,” he added, laughing, “that I don’t set quite such a value upon preaching as some people. I should not, for example, if I had undertaken to ‘Look Backward,’ like Mr. Bellamy, have found my ideal Sunday in listening to a sermon by telephone. It doesn’t quite fulfil one’s idea of worship, however excellent the sermon.” “Worship? why, the life they led in the year 2000 and the work they had done for the world was a better worship than if they had whined away on their knees for a month.” “No doubt; better worship, and the best of divine service; _but_—I don’t believe that when men learn to work together they will cease to pray together. This new Cathedral they are going to build in New York is to me one of the grandest and most heart-cheering signs of the times; but even _that_, I hope, won’t hold the people when the day of freedom really dawns. And when poverty is abolished, and every man stands equal with his brother-man—before man and before God,—then, I believe, from that mighty host will rise such a shout of loyalty to the Captain of their Salvation as will shake the Kingdom of Death to its centre. Cannot you imagine the wild—no, not wild—the disciplined enthusiasm with which that army of industry, and therefore of liberty, shall sing,— “‘Hail to the Lord’s Anointed, Great David’s greater Son, Hail, in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun. He comes to break oppression, To set the captive free; To take away transgression, And rule in equity’? And the new meaning there will be in so many hymns? ‘All hail the power of Jesus’ Name,’ ‘Crown Him with many crowns,’ and another, the campaign song now as then of His soldiers,— “‘He marches in front of His banner unfurled, Which He raised that His own might find Him, And the Holy Church throughout all the world Falls into rank behind Him.’ Ah! Dr. Richards, you may pessimize to your heart’s content, but, nevertheless,— “‘We march to victory With the Cross of the Lord before us!’” “I wish you did,” said the doctor. “I’d veil my crest to that Banner with the best grace in the world. But I haven’t much faith in the future.” “You haven’t much faith in God.” “Why, I can’t shut my eyes to facts, neither can I believe in a God who is less than omnipotent or less than perfectly good. Yet one of these hypotheses is necessary to reconcile the existence of God and the existence of evil.”