All this the young preacher put in his sermon, and as he saw the love that went out from his own full heart kindling in the eager faces of his listeners, he told them what had been in his mind on many a lonely walk through those fields: that while the flowers and the brook and the trees might not be taken to the great prison-pen where the children were, these might be brought out to enjoy them there. There was no reason why it should not be done, even though it had not been before. If they were poor and friendless and starved, yet there had been One even poorer, more friendless than they. They at least had their slum. He had not where to lay his head. Well they might, in receiving the children into their homes, be entertaining angels unawares. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto even the least of these, ye did it unto Me." The last hymn had been sung and the congregation had gone home, eagerly discussing their pastor's new scheme; but a little company of men and women remained behind in the church to talk it over with the minister. They were plain people. The sermon had shown them a plain duty to be done, and they knew only one way: to do it. The dinner-hour found them there yet, planning and talking it over. It was with a light heart that, as a result of their talk, the minister set out for New York the day after with an invitation to the children of the slums to come out in the woods and see how beautiful God had made his world. They were to be the guests of the people of Sherman for a fortnight, and a warm welcome awaited them there. A right royal one they received when, in a few days, the pastor returned, bringing with him nine little waifs, the poorest and the neediest he had found in the tenements to which he went with his offer. They were not such children as the farm-folk thereabouts saw every day, but they took them into their homes, and their hearts warmed to them day by day as they saw how much they needed their kindness, how under its influence they grew into bright and happy children like their own; and when, at the end of the two weeks, nine brown-faced laughing boys and girls went back to tell of the wondrous things they had heard and seen, it was only to make room for another little band. Nor has ever a summer passed since that first, which witnessed sixty city urchins made happy at Sherman, that has not seen the hospitable houses of the Pennsylvania village opened to receive holiday parties like those from the slums of the far city.