"No good fortune, sir," replied the deacon, and seating himself very stiffly on the edge of the straightest-backed chair in the room, he glared with stern eyes at the pastor, who threw himself carelessly into an easy rocker. "No good fortune, sir; I came to inquire if it is true that you are encouraging that unscriptural organization in their foolish and world-wise plans." Cameron put on a puzzled look. "What organization, and what plans?" he asked. "There," said the good deacon, with a sigh of great relief. "I told Sister Jones that there must be some mistake, for though you and I don't always agree, and lock horns sometimes on certain passages of the Scriptures, I did not believe that you were so far from the teaching of the Word as that." "As what?" asked Cameron again, but this time with a faint glimmer of understanding in his voice. "Please explain, Brother Wickham." "Why, Sister Jones came over to my house early this morning and told me that at the meeting of the Young People's Society last night, that young upstart Falkner, laid down plans for doing church work, and that you were there and approved of them. That rattle-headed boy of hers is all carried away." The preacher nodded, "Well?" "I could not believe it of course, but she said, as near as I could gather, that you were going to have the church buy a house and keep all the tramps who came to Boyd City. A more unscriptural thing I never heard of. Were you at the meeting last night?" "Yes, I was there," said Cameron slowly. The official frowned again as he said sharply: "You'll do more good for the cause, Brother Cameron, if you spend your time calling on the members. There is Deacon Godfrey's wife hasn't been out to services for three months because you haven't been to see her; and you're ruining the church now by your teaching. You've got to build on a Scriptural foundation if you want your work to last. All these people you've been getting in the last two years don't know a thing about first principles." The minister tried to explain: "The plan suggested last night by Mr. Falkner, who was there at the invitation of the Society, was simply for an institution that would permit a man who was homeless, cold and hungry, to pay for food and lodging until he could do better. In short, to prevent deaths like that of the young man found frozen a few weeks ago." "You don't know anything about that fellow," said the deacon. "If he had followed the teaching of the Scriptures he wouldn't have been in that fix. The Word says plainly: 'He that provideth not for his own is worse than an infidel.' You don't know whether he was a Christian or not. He may have never been baptized. Indeed, I am ready to prove that he never was, for the Scripture says that the righteous are never forsaken, nor their seed begging for bread. I've lived nearly fifty years now and I never went hungry and never slept out-doors either."