“I want the vestry to investigate these charges. I want you to find out whether it is true that members of St. Matthew's have been corrupting the government of Lockmanville. And if it is true, I want you to drive such men from the church! They have no place in the church, sir! Men who spend their whole time in trying to get the people's money from them! Men who openly declare, as Mr. Wygant did to me, that it is necessary to bribe lawmakers in order to make money! Such men degrade the church and drag it from its mission. They are the enemies the church exists to fight--” “Are we here to listen to a sermon from this boy?” shouted Mr. Hickman furiously. “Samuel, leave this room!” commanded Dr. Vince. “Then there is no one here who will help me?” “I told you you could accomplish nothing by such behavior. Leave the room!” “Very well, then,” cried the boy wildly, “I will go. But I tell you I will not give up without a fight. I will expose you and denounce you to the world! The people shall know you for what you are--cowards and hypocrites, faithless to your trust! Plunderers of the public! Corrupters of the state!” “Get out of here, you young villain!” shouted Hickman, advancing with a menace. And the boy, blazing with fury, pointed his finger straight into his face. “You, Henry Hickman!” he cried. “You are the worst of them all! You, the great lawyer--the eminent statesman! I have been among the lowest--I have been with saloon keepers and criminals--with publicans and harlots and thieves--but never yet have I met a man as merciless and as hard as you! You a Christian--you might be the Roman soldier who spat in Jesus' face!” And with that last thunderbolt Samuel turned and went out, slamming the door with a terrific bang in the great lawyer's face. For at least a couple of hours Samuel paced the streets of Lockmanville, to let his rage and grief subside. And then he went home, and to his astonishment found that Sophie Stedman had been waiting up for him all this while. She listened breathlessly to the story of his evening's adventures. Then she said, “I have been trying to do something, too.” “What have you done?” he asked. “I went to see little Ethel,” she replied. “Ethel Vince!” he gasped. “Yes,” said she. “She is your friend, you know; and I went to ask her not to let her father turn you off.” “And what came of it?” “She cried,” said Sophie. “She was terribly unhappy. She said that she knew that you were a good boy; and that she would never rest until her father had taken you back.” “You don't mean it!” cried Samuel in amazement. “Yes, Samuel; but then her mother came.” “Oh! And what then?” “She scolded me! She was very angry with me. She said I had no right to fill the child's mind with falsehoods about her uncle. And she wouldn't listen to me--she turned me out of the house.” There was a long silence. “I don't think I did any good at all,” said Sophie in a low voice. “We are going to have to do it all by ourselves.”