Curtin glanced at Linden. He sat as always, with ease, and a certain still power. He seemed to Curtin as simple and whole as a planet in the sky. This village Methodist church seemed within his frontier, as, when you thought of it, all other places seemed within it. Curtin remembered. They were talking, he and Linden, in Odessa, in their hotel, after having been to a great service in a great church. Linden was telling him that Religion held all religions, and that he, Linden, belonged solely to no one church, but liked at times to go sit in any one of them. He had gone on to say other things, but Curtin--and Curtin remembered this with a certain pang--had yawned, and said that it had been a tiring day and that he would off to bed. "My God, I was crass in those years!" thought Curtin. He still watched Linden, who could not know that he was being watched; and at the thought Linden turned his head and smiled at him. His face said as distinctly as if his voice had uttered it, "Yes, that night at Odessa!" Again Curtin, startled at first, felt the startling vanish. He thought--and, as on last night, his thought seemed to lay hold upon and give form to a down-draught from some upper region--"Truly the startling should be over mind broken from mind, not over mind beginning to heal!" He sat in a deep study. There came like a picture into his mind Jesus of Nazareth's parable of the talents. "Ability to perceive thought! If the world should take that talent and improve it, a different world we should have anon!" "Let us pray," said the minister. When they had prayed, he said, "Let us sing hymn number--" They sang: "Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear, It is not night if thou be near--" "I will read," said the minister, "from the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew." Curtin heard read the parable of the talents. He thought: "Intercommunication. It widens and deepens and heightens perpetually. Now it gets to be wireless, independent of gesture or the vocal cords, or the handwriting." There thronged echoes of his experience of the other night. "Intercommunication becomes communion. Communion becomes identity. At last 'we know even as we are known.'" The reading ended. They sang "Rock of Ages, cleft for me." All the congregation sang; men, women, and children's piping voices. They sat down. The minister took his text from the parable he had read.