The evangelist glanced round his congregation and found himself able to believe the report that the country districts were apathetic. He was an ugly little man with straggling brown whiskers and unruly hair, and had no great appearance of illumination, yet he was a true evangelist, labouring hard to pull souls from the pit of social and moral corruption. That was why he had been sent to the task of addressing the country congregations. He was not working with an eye to romance, nor for the glory which comes to those who work in the slums. He thought with the thoughts of those among whom he worked. He had known what it was to be hungry. He had known the crucifixion of standing idle when every limb ached to be working. He knew that pregnant women are sometimes beaten and kicked by the clogs of their husbands. He knew what little children felt like when they cried from cold. His heart was incessantly burning, but he had worked now for fifteen years and it was no longer burning with indignation. He had found others, not Christians, as he thought, who would be indignant, who would plan with pity and sympathy and with more efficiency and foresight that he could ever control, build up and organise ways of escape for much that he saw. He could meet them too. But his work was to understand, and from his understanding to attract and heal. The others had nothing to say to a woman whose husband died, or whose son became crippled at work, to a man who lost his right hand, or a girl whose sweetheart was drowned two days before the wedding, and these things were always happening. He looked round. He thought of his various speeches. It was no use telling these people how many more women were arrested for drunkenness in the streets this year than last, nor how many families lived in cellars, nor how many men were without work. Their imaginations, never straying into large numbers, would be blank. He would tell them stories of men and women like themselves, and of how _they_ managed when calamity came. He had sheaves of such stories and a ready tongue. He might strike a spark of understanding. His voice, as he began to speak, belied his appearance. It was sonorous and beautiful and it immediately controlled his audience.