"Well, a leetle the rise of three mile and a half, at this time of the year, but when the weather is bad, the road stretches powerful. My wife wanted to come today to hear the new preacher, but along come some folks visitin' from over the creek, with a passul of haungry children, and she had to stay and git 'em a bite to eat. Her doctrine is that it's better to feed the haungry than to eat, even if the table is served by a new preacher. Well," he added, as a hymn arose within the church, "they've struck up the tune of sorrow in there and I reckon we'd better go in." Warren walked with Nancy. "What, we ain't going in the same door?" she said as they approached. "Yes," he replied, "and I'm going to sit with you during the sermon." "No," she said, drawing back. "That won't do. I have heard that in town the women and the men sit together in church, but they don't out here, and if I did I'd never hear the last of it." "All right, I don't want to mark you in any way, but I want you to wait for me when you come out." Bostic came in. His face was grave, and he carried the timid air of a first appearance as he walked slowly down the aisle. The men mumbled, the women whispered, and Lyman heard a girl remark: "He ain't so mighty good-looking." At the door, there was a rustle of strange skirts, and as if a new note had been introduced into an old melody, the congregation looked around. Lyman looked too, and his breast grew warm with the new beating of his heart. Mrs. McElwin and her daughter entered the church. The preacher glanced up from his text and saw them, and his eye kindled. He gave out an old hymn and the congregation arose. The air was vibrant in the unctuous swell of sound. The spider webs hanging from the rafters trembled; the woods caught up the echo and bore it afar through the timber-land, and the distant leaves caught it as a whisper and hushed it. In it there was not music, not the harmony that seeks the approval of the brain; it was a chant that called upon the heart to humble itself in the sight of the Lord and to be brave in the presence of man, the tune that subdued the wilderness of a new world, a tune that men have sung before plunging into the swallowing fire of battle. The city is ashamed of it, laughs at it, but, far away in the country, it is still the war-cry of Jehovah.