But there remains a choice bit of portraiture ere my group of philanthropic leaders is complete. How firm and fine the etching that should accurately show the features of Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper, whose strong, sweet individuality I have not seen excelled—no, not even among women. From the time when our eastern press teemed with notices of the Presbyterian lady who had been tried for heresy and acquitted, who had the largest Bible class in San Francisco and was founder of that city’s Kindergartens for the poor, I made a mental memorandum that, no matter whom I missed, this lady I would see. So at 12:30 on a mild May Sabbath noon, I sought the elegant Plymouth Church, built by Rev. Dr. A. L. Stone, and found a veritable congregation in its noble auditorium. Men and women of high character and rare thoughtfulness were gathered, Bibles in hand, to hear the exposition of the acquitted heretic, whom a Pharisaical deacon had begun to assail contemporaneously with her outstripping him in popularity as an expounder of the gospel of love. She entered quietly by a side door, seated herself at a table level with the pews, laid aside her fur-lined cloak and revealed a fragile but symmetric figure, somewhat above the medium height, simply attired in black, with pose and movement altogether graceful, and while perfectly self-possessed, at the furthest remove from being self-assertive. Then I noted a sweet, untroubled brow, soft brown hair chastened with tinge of silver (frost that fell before its time, doubtless at the doughty deacon’s bidding); blue eyes, large, bright and loving; nose of the noblest Roman, dominant yet sensitive, chiseled by generations of culture, the unmistakable expression of highest force and mettlesomeness in character, held in check by all the gentlest sentiments: a mouth firm, yet delicate, full of the smiles that follow tears. Wordsworth’s lines describe her best: * * “A creature not too bright or good For human nature’s daily food, And yet a spirit, still and bright, With something of an angel’s light.” The teacher’s method was not that of pumping in, but drawing out. There were no extended monologues, but the Socratic style of colloquy—brief, comprehensive, passing rapidly from point to point, characterized the most suggestive and helpful hour I ever spent in Bible class. There was not the faintest effort at rhetorical effect; not a suspicion of the hortatory in manner, but all was so fresh, simple and earnest, that in contrast to the pabulum too often served up on similar occasions, this was nutritious essence. A Bible class teacher is like a hen with ample brood and all inclined to “take to the grass.” How to coax them back from their discursive rambles by discovering the toothsome morsel and restfully proclaiming it, the average teacher “finds not,” but it is a portion of “the vision and faculty divine” in this California phenomenon. Let me jot down a few notes: