"O, yes, indeed," said I, taking my cue from this. And I proceeded to give some character sketches of the grand men and women of Earth whose lives have been one long, heroic struggle for truth, and to whom a terrible death has often been the crowning triumph of their faith. I related to him briefly the history of America from its discovery four hundred years ago; and told him about the splendid material prosperity,--the enormous wealth, the extraordinary inventions, the great population, the unprecedented free-school system, and the progress in general education and culture,--of a country which had its birth but yesterday in a deadly struggle for freedom of conscience; and of our later, crueller war for freedom that was not for ourselves but for a despised race. I described the prodigious waves of public and private generosity that have swept millions of money into burned cities for their rebuilding, and tons of food into famine-stricken lands for the starving. I told him of the coming together in fellowship of purpose, of the great masses, to face a common danger, or to meet a common necessity; and of the moral and intellectual giants who in outward appearance and in the seeming of their daily lives are not unlike their fellows, but to whom all eyes turn for help and strength in the hour of peril. But I did not at that time undertake any explanation of our religious creeds, for it somehow seemed to me that these would not count for much with a people who expressed their theology solely by putting into practice the things they believed. I had the thought in mind though, and determined to exploit it later on. As I have said before, the Master listened with rapt attention, and when I had finished, he exclaimed, "I am filled with amazement! a country yet so young, so far advanced toward Truth!" He gave himself up to contemplation of the picture I had drawn, and in the depths of his eyes I seemed to see an inspired prophecy of my country's future grandeur. Presently he rose and went to a window, and, with uplifted face, murmured in accents of the sublimest reverence that have ever touched my understanding, "O, God, All-Powerful!" And a wonderful thing happened: the invocation was responded to by a voice that came to each of our souls as in a flame of fire, "Here am I." The velocity of worlds is not so swift as was our transition from the human to the divine. But it was not an unusual thing, this supreme triumph of the spirit; it is what these people call "divine worship,"--a service which is never perfunctory, which is not ruled by time or place. One may worship alone, or two or three, or a multitude, it matters not to God, who only asks to be worshiped in spirit and in truth,--be the time Sabbath or mid-week, the place temple, or field, or closet. A little later I remarked to the Master,--wishing to have a point cleared up,-- "You say there are no fictitious values put upon works of art; how do you mean?"