“Very likely,” said Sister Soulsby. “Most of us do. But you don't hear him talking about going and earning his living, I'll bet! Or if he does, he takes powerful good care not to go, all the same. They've got horse-sense, those priests. They're artists, too. They know how to allow for the machinery behind the scenes.” “But it's all so different,” urged the young minister; “the same things are not expected of them. Now I sat the other night and watched those people you got up around the altar-rail, groaning and shouting and crying, and the others jumping up and down with excitement, and Sister Lovejoy--did you see her?--coming out of her pew and regularly waltzing in the aisle, with her eyes shut, like a whirling dervish--I positively believe it was all that made me ill. I couldn't stand it. I can't stand it now. I won't go back to it! Nothing shall make me!” “Oh-h, yes, you will,” she rejoined soothingly. “There's nothing else to do. Just put a good face on it, and make up your mind to get through by treading on as few corns as possible, and keeping your own toes well in, and you'll be surprised how easy it'll all come to be. You were speaking of the revival business. Now that exemplifies just what I was saying--it's a part of our machinery. Now a church is like everything else,--it's got to have a boss, a head, an authority of some sort, that people will listen to and mind. The Catholics are different, as you say. Their church is chuck-full of authority--all the way from the Pope down to the priest--and accordingly they do as they're told. But the Protestants--your Methodists most of all--they say 'No, we won't have any authority, we won't obey any boss.' Very well, what happens? We who are responsible for running the thing, and raising the money and so on--we have to put on a spurt every once in a while, and work up a general state of excitement; and while it's going, don't you see that THAT is the authority, the motive power, whatever you like to call it, by which things are done? Other denominations don't need it. We do, and that's why we've got it.” “But the mean dishonesty of it all!” Theron broke forth. He moved about again, his bowed face drawn as with bodily suffering. “The low-born tricks, the hypocrisies! I feel as if I could never so much as look at these people here again without disgust.” “Oh, now that's where you make your mistake,” Sister Soulsby put in placidly. “These people of yours are not a whit worse than other people. They've got their good streaks and their bad streaks, just like the rest of us. Take them by and large, they're quite on a par with other folks the whole country through.” “I don't believe there's another congregation in the Conference where--where this sort of thing would have been needed, or, I might say, tolerated,” insisted Theron.