"Is it not beautiful?" asked the poor woman of her son. But he did not hear her. His eyes, blinded by tears of infinite sorrow, were resting on the white statue of the Virgin near the snowy altar of marble, on which burnt a constellation of tapers and candles around the red lamp of the "Holy Presence." His breast heaved; a sob escaped him, and his head sank upon his chest. "And they do this in the name of love," he said, as if in prayer. "They make an idol of my memory while my brothers and sisters are dying for the lack of love and kindness. They do all this to praise me whom they have so little understood. O God, my Father, let this trial pass, or make me as you are that I may, this time, set them right, for I suffer past endurance." The short sermon ended. The celebration of Mass began. The wafer and the wine were consecrated. The priest raised the wafer before the eyes of the congregation and said, "This is my body," and all heads bowed low. "At the very instant you hear the bell strike," whispered a man to a boy near the mother and son, "at that very instant the Saviour will be there--listen!" "Father, forgive them," the woman heard her son say, and she followed him out of the church. They had reached the street when three strokes from a silver bell was heard. A few minutes later, as they were passing through a squalid street on the way home, they came to a little church. He read her wishes in her face, and they went in. A man approached and showed them to a back seat. On a platform a preacher was striding to and fro shouting, singing snatches of hymns, and praying. In his excitement he would fall on his knees and raise his hands heavenward; again he would spring up and beat himself with his hands, and violently kick the floor, preaching, singing, and praying alternately. "Save yourselves from the eternal wrath of an angry God!" he cried. "I tell you that hell is yawning for you; the burning breath of countless devils is about you. Christ died to save you; will you not trust in him? Now is the only time; to-morrow it may be too late!" After awhile the congregation began to sing a hymn, and the preacher went on: "Come forward all who want the prayers of the church. Come now, and embrace salvation!" And men, women, and children trembling with fear, and weeping and groaning, went to the altar and threw themselves on their knees. The poor woman looked at her son. His face was pale and set as with the agony of death. She glanced over the congregation. People sat there wrestling with the greatest problem of their lives, their faces white, their eyes dilated. Others were smiling as if highly amused at the preacher's actions. Members of ritualistic churches, who had come out of curiosity, were frowning contemptuously, and congratulating themselves on the dignity of their own form of worship.