“Well,” he said, “I hardly know. The range of interests, I must say, is not very wide. There has been a good deal of sickness in the congregation this Summer----” “Yes,” I says, “I know. Mis’ Emmons’s limb has been troubling her again. Mis’ Temples’ headaches have come back. Old Mr. Blackwell has got hold of a new dyspepsia remedy. At the Holmans’ the two twins fell into an empty cistern and got scraped. And Grandma Oxner don’t see any change in the old complaint. I’m familiar with ’em.” He smiled at that. “They _have_ a good many burdens to bear,” he says, patient. “But----” “But,” I says, “don’t it seem wicked to ask a man to set and listen to everybody’s troubles for one hundred and fourteen calls a month, and expect him to feel he’s doing the Lord’s work?” “The office of comforter----” he began. “When,” says I, “was complaints ever lessened by dwelling on ’em--tell me that? Oh,” I says, “it ain’t you I’m blaming, nor the other ministers either. I’m blaming us, that calls a minister to come and help us reveal the word of God to ourselves, and then expect a social call a month, or more, off’n him, once around the congregation--or else be uppish and mebbe leave the church.” “The office of spiritual adviser always demands----” he started in, and concluded it as might have been expected. “How much religion really, _really_, do they let you talk on these calls?” I ask’ him. “Don’t it seem kind of bad taste if you say much about it? And as a matter of fact, don’t ministers pride themselves nowdays on being all-around men who can talk about everything, from concerts to motion pictures, and this here city gollif? Of course they do. That is, if folks keep off their complaints long enough to leave you prove how really broad your interests are.” “Yes, I know--well,” he says patient, “they expect the calls. What,” he adds, “had you thought of for the order of the four Sunday services?” “I thought,” I says, “for the first fifteen minutes or so, we might sing together.” “A short praise service,” says he, comprehending. “Well--that’s a little out of the order for the Sunday morning service, but it might be indulged.” “Yes,” I says, dry. “Praise ought not to offend most people. And then I thought of it for what it does to people to sing together for a while. It makes real things seem sort of possible, I always think. After the Doxology, we might start in with ‘America,’ and----” “America?” says he. I waited. I thought the next observation belonged to him. “We’ve sung ‘America’ at Sunday evening mass meetings,” he says, “but for the opening hymn of the regular morning worship--still, of course it’s in the hymnal. I suppose there is really no objection.”