Mary gave her a hug, and almost ran away. Joan watched the little child-like figure growing smaller. It glided in and out among the people. “Much as Rome took Savonarola,” thought Madge.!

“You’ve got to face this unalterable law,” he continued. “That power derived from worldly sources can only be employed for worldly purposes. The power conferred by popularity, by wealth, by that ability to make use of other men that we term organization—sooner or later the man who wields that power becomes the Devil’s servant. So long as Kingship was merely a force struggling against anarchy, it was a holy weapon. As it grew in power so it degenerated into an instrument of tyranny. The Church, so long as it remained a scattered body of meek, lowly men, did the Lord’s work. Enthroned at Rome, it thundered its edicts against human thought. The Press is in danger of following precisely the same history. When it wrote in fear of the pillory and of the jail, it fought for Liberty. Now it has become the Fourth Estate, it fawns—as Jack Swinton said of it—at the feet of Mammon. My Proprietor, good fellow, allows me to cultivate my plot amid the wilderness for other purposes than those of quick returns. If he were to become a competitor with the Carletons and the Bloomfields, he would have to look upon it as a business proposition. The Devil would take him up on to the high mountain, and point out to him the kingdom of huge circulations and vast profits, whispering to him: ‘All this will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ I don’t want the dear good fellow to be tempted.” “It’s a new world we shall be called upon to build,” he said. “We must pay more heed to the foundation this time.”

“Did you have a good house?” the girl asked him. “Saw you from the distance, waving your arms about. Hadn’t time to stop.” “Does it matter what we call it?” answered Joan. “It was a voice.” “God is a spirit. His dwelling-place is in man’s heart. We are His fellow-labourers. It is through man that He shall one day rule the world.”