"Condemn?" she answered questioningly, "I condemn?" Those deep gray eyes were turned full upon him, and he saw her face grow tender and sad, while the sweet voice trembled with emotion. "Who spoke of condemnation? Is that just the question? Are you not unfair? In my--" she spoke the words solemnly, "my ministry, I have stood at the bedside of too many heroes and heroines not to know that the church is filled with the truest and bravest. And that--Oh! don't you see--that is the awful pity of it all. That those true, brave, noble lives should be the--the cloud that hides the sun? As for the ministry, one in my profession could scarcely help knowing the grand lives that are hidden in this useless class set apart by the church to push its interests. The ministers are useless only because they are not free. They cannot help themselves. They are slaves, not servants. Their first duty is, not service to the soul-sick world that so much needs their ministry, but obedience to the whims of this hideous monster that they have created and now must obey or--" she paused. "Or what?" he said. She continued as if she had not heard: "They are valued for their fidelity to other men's standards, never for the worth of their own lives. They are hired to give always the opinions of others, and they are denied the only thing that can make any life of worth--freedom of self-expression. The surest road to failure for them is to hold or express opinions of their own. They are held, not as necessities, but as a luxury, like heaven itself, for which if men have the means to spare, they pay. They can have no real fellowship with the servants of the race, for they are set apart by the church not to a ministry but from it. Their very personal influence is less than the influence of other good men because the world accepts it as professional. It is the way they earn their living." "But do you think that the ministers themselves wish to be so set apart?" asked Dan. "I--I am sure they must all crave that fellowship with the workers." "I think that is true," she answered. "I am sure it is of the many grand, good men in the ministry whom I have known." "Oh," he said quickly, "then there are good men in the ministry?" "Yes," she retorted, "just as there are gold and precious stones ornamenting heathen gods and pagan temples, and their goodness is as useless. For whether they wish it or not the facts remain that their masters set them apart and that they are separated, and I notice that most of them accept gracefully the special privileges, and wear the title and all the marks of their calling that emphasize the distinction between them and their fellow men." "Yet you wear a distinguishing dress," he said. "I knew your calling the first time I saw you." She laughed merrily. "Well what amuses you?" he demanded, smiling himself at her merriment.