"Little children, the earth is burning out like a bedroom candle. The great sun is but a longer candle that burns out also. All the stars are but candles that one by one go out in the darkness of the universe. Now tell me, you children of this house, you children of the earth, for I make no difference among you and ask each the same question: when the earth and the sun and the stars are burnt out like your bedroom candles, where in that darkness will you be? Where will all the children of the earth be then?" And now at last the Great Solemn Night drew apart its curtains of mystery and revealed its spiritual summit. Out of these ordinary American children had all but died the last vestiges of the superstitions of their time and of earlier ages. They were new children of a new land in a new time; and they were the voices of fresh millions--voices that rose and floated far and wide as a revelation of the spirit of man stripped of worn-out rags and standing forth in its divine nakedness--wingèd and immortal. "I know where I shall be," said the lad whose ideal of this life turned toward strength that would not fail and truth that could not waver. "I know where I shall be," said the little soul whose earthly ideal was selfishness: who had within herself humanity's ideal that hereafter somewhere in the universe all desires will be gratified. "I know where I shall be," said the little soul whose earthly ideal was the quieting of the world's pain: who had vague notions of a land where none would be sick and none suffer. "I know where I shall be," said the little soul whose ideal of life was the gathering and keeping of all beautiful things that none should be lost and that none should change. Then in the same spirit in which the group of them had carried on their drama of the night they now asked him:-- "Where will _you_ be?" For a while there was no answer, and when at length the answer came it was low indeed:-- "Wherever the earth's children are, may I be there with them!" As the vast modern cathedral organ can be traced back through centuries to the throat of a dry reed shaken with its fellows by the wind on the banks of some ancient river, so out of the throats of these children began once more the chant of ages-that deep majestical organ-roll of humanity. The darkened parlor of the Kentucky farmhouse became the plain where shepherds watched their flocks--it became the Mount of Transfiguration--it became Calvary--it became the Apocalypse. It became the chorus out of all lands, out of all ages:--