It was the mere humanity of the woman, I say, and nothing in her individuality of what is commonly called the interesting, that ministered to the breaking of the schoolmaster’s trance. “_Oh ye of little faith!_” were the first words that flew from his lips--he knew not whether uttered concerning himself or the charwoman the more; and at once he fell to speaking of him who said the words, and of the people that came to him and heard him gladly;--how this one, whom he described, must have felt, _Oh, if that be true!_ how that one, whom also he described, must have said, _Now he means me!_ and so laid bare the secrets of many hearts, until he had concluded all in the misery of being without a helper in the world, a prey to fear and selfishness and dismay. Then he told them how the Lord pledged himself for all their needs--meat and drink and clothes for the body, and God and love and truth for the soul, if only they would put them in the right order and seek the best first. Next he spoke a parable to them--of a house and a father and his children. The children would not do what their father told them, and therefore began to keep out of his sight. After a while they began to say to each other that he must have gone out, it was so long since they had seen him--only they never went to look. And again after a time some of them began to say to each other that they did not believe they had ever had any father. But there were some who dared not say that--who thought they had a father somewhere in the house, and yet crept about in misery, sometimes hungry and often cold, fancying he was not friendly to them, when all the time it was they who were not friendly to him, and said to themselves he would not give them anything. They never went to knock at his door, or call to know if he were inside and would speak to them. And all the time there he was sitting sorrowful, listening and listening for some little hand to come knocking, and some little voice to come gently calling through the key-hole; for sorely did he long to take them to his bosom and give them everything. Only if he did that without their coming to him, they would not care for his love or him, would only care for the things he gave them, and soon would come to hate their brothers and sisters, and turn their own souls into hells, and the earth into a charnel of murder. Ere he ended he was pleading with the charwoman to seek her father in his own room, tell him her troubles, do what he told her, and fear nothing. And while he spoke, lo! the dragon-slug had vanished; the ugly chapel was no longer the den of the hideous monster; it was but the dusky bottom of a glory shaft, adown which gazed the stars of the coming resurrection. “The whole trouble is that we won’t let God help us,” said the preacher, and sat down.