Of course, that night's incidents were talked about. All Afton was busy with them for the next few days. And just here a strange perverseness of human nature cropped out. There was Doctor Gasque, a man who had not been inside of a meeting house for years; who had been an acknowledged skeptic; who on his own confession had been exceedingly self-righteous; and there was his son Harry, wild, dissolute, and dissipated; yet no one doubted their conversion. "It is so wonderful," they said. "I am so glad for Mrs. Gasque." "What Christians they will make!" "What a help to the First Church!" "What influence they will have!"--and a dozen other equally pleased expressions passed from lip to lip. Nor would I for one moment say they were undeserved. But the Branfords! Well, there were Mr. Carleton and Miss Squire, and old Deacon Blake, and Mr. Bacon and others, who believed that their conversion was real, and hailed with delight what they believed to be an indication that the reformation of the Black Forge people was at hand. There were others, however, good church people, too, who shrugged their shoulders when Ray and his sister-in-law were mentioned, and said: "I presume we must receive them into the church, of course; but they'll never be any help to us, and very likely they will have to be disciplined before a great while." Others shook their heads forebodingly, saying: "If I were Mr. Carleton, I should wait awhile before I was so sure that those Branfords were converted: they are a hard set." Then there were others who shook out the folds of their silks, and said, complacently: "Really, I don't know what the First Church is coming to. Mr. Grundy and I don't propose to mix with the Black Forge people. We haven't been accustomed to associate with such people, and if the First Church insists on that rabble coming in, we shall take our letters to the Central Church. Dr. Lightfoot is as fine a preacher as Mr. Carleton, and the people there are so much more select." Don't think, dear reader, I have exaggerated this thing at all. For a good many years I have been a church member, and acquainted with nearly every phase of Christian work; and I assert, without fear of contradiction, that there is in many of our churches a spirit which seeks after those who may be a _financial_ and _social_ help to the church, while the masses are either neglected or looked upon with disfavor. Many Christians still need a special vision and a voice from heaven, saying: "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common," before they can understand that "God is no respecter of persons."