“My friends must respect this house. Let property riot–poverty can wait. It has waited a long time and is used to it.”
When Market Street was gone, the speaker drew a deep breath and said in a low, quiet voice charged with pent-up emotion: “Now that we are alone, friends,–now that they are gone whose hearts needed this message, let me say just this: God has given you who live beautiful lives the keeping of his treasure. Let us ask ourselves this: Shall we keep it to share it with our brethren in love, or shall we guard it against our brethren in hate?”
He walked back to the rear of the room and sat, with his head bowed down, beside his friends, spent and weary while the services closed.
At the church door Laura Van Dorn saw the despair that was somewhat a physical reaction from weariness. So she cut her way through the group and went to him, taking his arm and drawing him aside into the homebound walk, as quickly as she could. He remained grim and spoke only in answer to challenge or question from Laura. It was plain to her that he felt that his speech was a failure; that he had not made himself understood; that he had overstated his case. She was not sure herself that he had not lost more ground than he had gained in the town. But she wrapped him about in a garment of kindness–an almost maternal tenderness that was balm to his heart. She did not praise his speech but she let him know that she was proud of him, that her heart was in all that he had said, even if he felt definitely that there were places in his adventure where her head was not ready to go. She held no check upon the words that came to her lips, for she felt, even deeper and surer than she felt her own remoteness from the love which her girlhood had known, that in him it was forever dead. No touch of his hand; no look of his eye, no quality of his voice had come to her since her childhood, in which she could find trace or suggestion that sex was alive in him. The ardor that burned so wildly upon his face, the fire in his eyes that glowed when he spoke of his work and his problems, seemed to have charred within him all flower and beauty of romance. But they left with him a hunger for sympathy. A desire to be mothered and a longing for a deep and sweet understanding which made Laura more and more necessary to him as he went into his life’s pilgrimage. As they reached a corner, he left her with her family while he turned away for a night walk.
As he walked, he was continually coming upon lovers passing or meeting him in the night; and Grant seeing them felt his sense of isolation from life renewed, but was not stirred to change his course. For hours he wandered through the town and out of it into the prairies, with his heart heavy and wroth at the iniquities of men which make the inequities of life. For his demon kept him from sleep. If another demon, and perhaps a gentler, tried to whisper to him that night of another life and a sweeter, tried to turn him from his course into the normal walks of man, tried to break his purpose and tempt him to dwell in the comely tents of Kedar–if some gentler angels that would have saved him from a harsher fate had beckoned to him and called him that night, through passing lovers’ arms and the murmur of loving voices, his eyes were blind and his ears were deaf and his heart was hot with another passion.
Amos Adams was in bed when Grant came into the house. On the table was a litter of writing paper. Grant sat down for a minute under the lamp. His father in the next room stirred, and asked:
“What kept you?” And then, “I had a terrific time with Mr. Left to-night.” The father appeared in the doorway. “But just look there what I got after a long session.”
On the page were these words written in a little round, old-fashioned hand, some one’s interminably repeated prayer. “Angels guide him–angels strengthen him; angels pray for him.” These words were penned clear across the page and on the next line and the next and the next to the very bottom of the page, in a weary monotony, save that at the bottom of the sheet the pen had literally run into the paper, so heavily was the hand of the writer bearing down! Under that, written in the fine hand used by Mr. Left was this:
“Huxley:–On earth I wrote that I saw one angel–‘the strong, calm angel playing for love.’ Now I see the forces of good leading the world forward, compelling progress; all are personal–just as the Great All Encompassing Force is personal, just as human consciousness is personal. The positive forces of life are angels–not exact–but the best figure. So it is true that was written, ‘there is more joy in Heaven’–and ‘the angels sang for joy.’ This also is only a figure–but the best I can get through to you. Angels guide us, angels strengthen us, angels pray for us.”
CHAPTER XXXI
IN WHICH JUDGE VAN DORN MAKES HIS BRAGS AND DR. NESBIT SEES A VISION
It was the last day of the last year of the Nineteenth Century–and a fair, beautiful day it was. The sun shone over Harvey in spite of the clouds from the smelter in South Harvey, and in spite of the clouds that were blown by the soft, south wind up the Wahoo Valley from other smelters and other coal mines, and a score of great smoke stacks in Foley and Magnus and Plain Valley, where the discovery of coal and oil and gas, within the decade that was passing, had turned the Valley into a straggling town almost twenty miles long. So high and busy were the chimneys that when the south wind blew toward the capital of this industrial community, often the sun was dimmed in Harvey by a haze. But on this fair winter’s day the air was dry and cold and even in Harvey shadows were black and clear, and the sun’s warmth had set the redbirds to singing in the brush and put so much joy into the world that Judge Thomas Van Dorn had ventured out with his new automobile–a chugging, clattering wonder that set all the horses of Greeley County on their hind feet, making him a person of distinction in the town far beyond his renown as a judge and an orator and a person of more than state-wide reputation. But the Judge’s automobile was frail and prone to err–being not altogether unlike its owner in that regard. Thus many a time when it chugged out of his barn so proudly, it came limping back behind a span of mules. And so it happened on that bright, beautiful, December day that the Judge was sitting upon a box in Captain Morton’s shop, while the Captain at his little forge was welding some bits of metal together and discoursing upon the virtues of his Household Horse, which he was assembling in small quantities–having arranged with a firm in South Chicago to cast the two iron pieces that were needed.
“Now, for instance, on a clothes wringer,” the Captain was saying: “It’s a perfect wonder on a clothes wringer: I have the agency of a clothes wringer that is making agents rich all over the country. But women don’t like clothes wringers; why? Because they require such hard work. All right–hitch on my Household Horse, and the power required is reduced three-fifths and a day’s wash may be put on the line as easy as a girl could play The Maiden’s Prayer on a piano–eh? Or, say, put it on a churn–same Horse–one’s all that’s needed to a house. Or make it an ice cream freezer or a cradle or a sewing machine, or anything on earth that runs by a crank–and ’y gory, man, you make housework a joy. I sold Laura one–traded her one for lessons for Ruth, and she says wash-day at the Doctor’s is like Sunday now–what say? Lila’s so crazy about it they can’t keep her out of the basement while the woman works,–likes to dabble in the water you know like all children, washing her doll clothes, what say?”
But the Judge said nothing. The Captain tinkered with the metal, and dipped it slowly in and out of a tub of dirty water to temper it, and as he tried it in the groove where it belonged upon the automobile backed up to the shop, he found that it was not exactly true, and went to work to spring it back into line. The Judge looked around the shop–a barny, little place filled with all sorts of wheels and pulleys and levers and half-finished inventions that wouldn’t work, and that, even if they would work, would be of little consequence. There was an attempt to make a self-oiler for buggy wheels, a half-finished contrivance that was supposed to keep cordwood stacked in neat rows; an automatic contraption to prevent coffeepots from burning; a cornsheller that would all but work; a molasses faucet with an alcohol burner which was supposed to make the sirup flow faster–but which instead sometimes blew up and burned down grocery stores, and there were steamers and churns and household contrivances which the Captain had introduced into the homes of Harvey in past years, not of his invention, to be sure, but contrivances that had inspired his eloquence, and were mute witnesses to his prowess–trophies of the chase. Above the forge were rows of his patent sprockets, all neatly wrapped in brown paper, and under this row of merchandise was a clipping from the Times describing the Captain’s invention, and predicting–at five cents a line–that it would revolutionize the theory of mechanics and soon become a household need all over the world.
As the Judge looked idly at the Captain’s treasures while the Captain tinkered with the steel, he took off his hat, and the Captain, peering through his glasses, remarked:
“Getting kind of thin on top, Tom–eh? Doc, he’s leaning a little hard on his cane. Joe Calvin, he’s getting rheumatic, and you’re getting thin-haired. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”
“So you believe the Lord runs things here in Harvey, do you, Cap?” asked the Judge, who was playing with a bit of wire.
“Well–I suppose if you come right down to it,” answered the Captain, “a man’s got to have the consolation of religion in some shape or other or he’s going to get mighty discouraged–what say?”
“Why,” scoffed the Judge, “it’s a myth–there’s nothing to it. Look at my wife–I mean Margaret–she changes religion as often as she changes dogs. Since we’ve been married she’s had three religions. And what good does it do her?”
The Captain, sighting down the edge of the metal, shook his head, and the Judge went on: “What good does any religion do? I’ve broken the ten commandments, every one of them–and I get on. No one bothers me, because I keep inside the general statutes. I’ve beat God at his own game. I tell you, Cap, you can do what you please just so you obey the state and federal laws and pay your debts. This God-myth amuses me.”
Captain Morton did not care to argue with the Judge. So he said, by way of making conversation for a customer, and neighbor and guest:
“I hear, well, to be exact, George Brotherton was telling me and the girls the other night that the Company is secretly dropping out the members of the unions that Grant Adams has been organizing down in South Harvey.”
“Yes–that Adams is another one of your canting, God-and-morality fellows. Always watch that kind. I tell you, Captain,” barked the Judge, “about the only thing my wife and I have agreed on for a year is that this Adams fellow is a sneaking, pharisaical hound. Lord, how she hates him! Sometimes I think women hate hard enough to compete with your God, who according to the preachers, is always slipping around getting even with fellows for their sins. God and women are very much alike, anyway,” sneered the Judge. In the silence that followed, both men were attracted by a noise behind them–the rustling of straw. They looked around and saw the figure of a little girl–a yellow-haired, blue-eyed, shy, little girl, trying to slip out of the place. She had evidently been in the loft gathering eggs, for her apron was full, and she had her foot on the loft ladder.
“Why, Lila, child,” exclaimed the Captain, “I clean forgot you being up there–did you find any eggs? Why didn’t you come down long ago?”
“Come here, Lila,” called the Judge. The child stood by the ladder hesitatingly, holding her little apron corners tightly in her teeth basketing the eggs–too embarrassed now that she was down the ladder, to use her hands.
“Lila,” coaxed the Judge, reaching his hand into his pocket, “won’t you let Papa give you a dollar for candy or something. Come on, daughter.” He put out his hands. She shook her head. She had to pass him to get to the door. “You aren’t afraid of your Papa are you, Lila–come–here’s a dollar for you–that’s a good girl.”
Her mouth quivered. Big tears were dropping down her cheeks. The Captain’s quick eye saw that something had hurt her. He went over to her, put his arm about her, took the eggs from her apron, fondled her gently without speaking. The Judge drew nearer “Lila–come–that’s a good girl–here, take the money. Oh Lila, Lila,” he cried, “won’t you take it for Papa–won’t you, my little girl?”
The child looked up at him with shy frightened eyes, and suddenly she put down her head and ran past him. He tried to hold her–to put the silver into her hand, but she shrank away and dropped the coin before him.
“Shy child, Judge–very shy. Emma let her gather the eggs this morning, she loves to hunt eggs,” chuckled the Captain, “and she went to the loft just before you came in. I clean forgot she hadn’t come down.”
The Captain went on with his work.
“I suppose, Cap,” said Van Dorn quietly, “she heard more or less of what I said.” The Captain nodded.
“How much did she understand?” the Judge asked.
“More’n you’d think, Judge–more’n you’d think. But,” added Captain Morton after a pause, “I know the little skite like a top, Judge–and there’s one thing about her: She’s a loyal little body. She’ll never tell; you needn’t be worrying about that.”
The Judge sighed and added sadly: “It wasn’t that, Cap–it was–” But the Judge left his sentence in the air. The mending was done. The Judge paid the old man and gave him a dollar more than he asked, and went chugging off in a cloud of smoke, while the Captain, thinking over what the Judge had said, sighed, shook his head, and bending over his work, cackled in an undertone, snatches of a tune that told of a land that is fairer than day. He had put together three sprockets and was working on the fourth when he looked up and saw his daughter Emma sitting on the box that the Judge had vacated. The Captain put his hand to his back and stood up, looking at his eldest daughter with loving pride.
“Emma,” he said at length, “Judge Tom says women are like God.” He stood near her and smoothed her hair, and patted her cheek as he pressed her head against his side. “I guess he’s right–eh? Lila was in the loft getting eggs and she overheard a lot of his fool talk.” The daughter made no reply. The Captain worked on and finally said: “It kind of hit Tom hard to have Lila hear him; took the tuck out of him, eh?”
Emma still waited. “My dear, the more I know of women the better I think of God, and the surer I am of God, the better I think of women–what say?” He sat on the box beside her and took her hand in his hard, cracked, grimy hand, “’Y gory, girl, I tell you, give me a line on a man’s idea of God and I can tell you to a tee what he thinks of women–eh?” The Captain dropped the hand for a moment and looked out of the door into the alley.
“Well, Father, I agree with you in general about women but in particular I don’t care about Mrs. Herdicker and I wish Martha had another job, though I suppose it’s better than teaching school.” The daughter sighed. “Honest, father, sometimes when I’ve been on my feet all day, and the children have been mean, and the janitor sticks his head in and grins, so I’ll know the superintendent is in the building and get the work off the board that the rules don’t allow me to put on, or one of the other girls sends a note up to watch for my spelling for he’s cranky on spelling to-day, I just think, ‘Lordee, if I had a job in some one’s kitchen, I’d be too happy to breathe.’ But then–”
“Yes–yes, child–I know it’s hard work now–but ’y gory, Emmy, when I get this sprocket introduced and going, I’ll buy you six superintendents in a brass cage and let you feed ’em biled eggs to make ’em sing–eh?” He smiled and patted his daughter’s hair and rose to go back to work. The girl plucked at his coat and said: “Now sit down, father, I want to talk to you,” she hesitated. “It’s about Mr. Brotherton. You know he’s been coming out here for years and I thought he was coming to see me, and now Martha thinks he comes to see her, and Martha always stays there and so does Ruth, and if he is coming to see me–” she stopped. Her father looked at her in astonishment. “Why, father,” she went on,–“why not? I’m twenty-five, and Martha’s twenty-two and even Ruth is seventeen–he might even be coming to see Ruth,” she added bitterly.
“Yes, or Epaminondas–the cat–eh?” cut in the old man. Then he added, indignantly, “Well, how about this singing Jasper Adams–who’s he coming to see? Or Amos–he comes around here sometimes Saturday night after G. A. R. meeting, with me–what say? Would you want us all to clear out and leave you the front room with him?” demanded the perturbed Captain.
Then the father put his arm about his child tenderly: “Twenty-five years old–twenty-five years–why, girl, in my time a girl was an old maid laid on the shelf at twenty-five–and here you are,” he mused, “just thinking of your first beau and here I am needing your mother worse than I ever did in my life. Law-see’ girl–how do I know what to do–what say?” But he did know enough to draw her to him and kiss her and sigh. “Well–maybe I can do something–maybe–we’ll see.” And then she left him and he went to his work. And as he worked the thought struck him suddenly that if he could put one of his sprockets in the Judge’s automobile where he had seen a chain, that it would save power and stop much of the noise. So as he worked he dreamed that his sprocket was adopted by the makers of the new machines, and that he was rich–exceedingly rich and that he took the girls to visit the Ohio kin, and that Emma had her trip to the Grand Canyon, that Martha went to Europe and that Ruthie “took vocal” of a teacher in France whose name he could not pronounce.
As he hammered away at his bench he heard a shuffling at the door and looking up saw Dr. Nesbit in the threshold.
“Come in, Doctor; sit down and talk,” shrilled the Doctor before the Captain could speak, and when the Doctor had seated himself upon the box by the workbench, the Captain managed to say: “Surely–come right in, I’m kind of lonesome anyhow.”
“And I’m mad,” cried the Doctor. “Just let me sit here and blow off a little to my old army friend.”
“Well–well, Doctor, it’s queer to see you hot under the collar–eh?” The Doctor began digging out his pipe and filling it, without speaking. The Captain asked: “What’s gone wrong? Politics ain’t biling? what say?”
“Well,” returned the Doctor, “you know Laura works at her kindergarten down there in South Harvey, and she got me to pass that hours-of-service law for the smelter men at the extra session last summer. Good law! Those men working there in the fumes shouldn’t work over six hours a day–it will kill them. I managed by trading off my hide and my chances of Heaven to get a law through, cutting them down to eight hours in smelter work. Denny Hogan, who works on the slag dump, is going to die if he has to do it another year on a ten-hour shift. He’s been up and down for two years now–the Hogans live neighbors to Laura’s school and I’ve been watching him. Well,” and here the Doctor thumped on the floor with his cane, “this Judge–this vain, strutting peacock of a Judge, this cat-chasing Judge that was once my son-in-law, has gone and knocked the law galley west so far as it affects the slag dump. I’ve just been reading his decision, and I’m hot–good and hot.”
The Captain interrupted:
“I saw Violet Hogan and the children–dressed like princesses, walking out to-day–past the Judge’s house–showing it to them–what say? My, how old she looks, Doctor!”
“Well–the damned villain–the infernal scoundrel–” piped the Doctor. “I just been reading that decision. The men showed in their lawsuit that the month before the law took effect the company, knowing the law had been passed, went out and sold their switch and sold the slag dump, to a fake railroad company that bought a switch engine and two or three cars, and incorporated as a railroad, and then–the same people owning the smelter and the railroad, they set all the men in the smelter that they could working on the slag dump, so the men were working for the railroad and not for the smelter company and didn’t come within the eight hour law. And now the Judge stands by that farce; he says that the men working there under the very chimney of the smelter on the slag dump where the fumes are worst, are not subject to the law because the law says that men working for the smelters shall not work more than eight hours, and these men are working for a cheating, swindling subterfuge of a railroad. That’s judge-made law. That’s the kind of law that makes anarchists. Law!” snorted the Doctor, “Law!–made by judges who have graduated out of the employ of corporations–law!–is just what the Judge on the bench dares to read into the statute. I tell you, Cap, if the doctors and engineers and preachers were as subservient to greed and big money as the lawyers are, we would soon lose our standing. But when a lawyer commits some flagrant malpractice like that of Tom Van Dorn’s–the lawyers remind us that the courts are sacred institutions.”
The Doctor’s pipe was out and in filling it again, he jabbed viciously at the bowl with his knife, and in the meantime the Captain was saying:
“Well, I suppose he found the body of the decisions leaning that way, Doc–you know Judges are bound by the body of the law.”
“The body of the law–yes, damn ’em, I’ve bought ’em to find the body of the law myself.”
The Doctor sputtered along with his pipe and cried out in his high treble–“I never had any more trouble buying a court than a Senator. And lawyers have no shame about hiring themselves to crooks and notorious lawbreakers. And some lawyers hire themselves body and soul to great corporations for life and we all know that those corporations are merely evading the laws and not obeying them; and lawyers–at the very top of the profession–brazenly hire out for life to that kind of business. What if the top of the medical profession was composed of men who devoted themselves to fighting the public welfare for life! We have that kind of doctors–but we call them quacks. We don’t allow ’em in our medical societies. We punish them by ostracism. But the quack lawyers who devote themselves to skinning the public–they are at the head of the bar. They are made judges. They are promoted to supreme courts. A damn nice howdy-do we’re coming to when the quacks run a whole profession. And Tom Van Dorn is a quack–a hair-splitting, owl-eyed, venal quack–who doles out the bread pills of injustice, and the strychnine stimulants of injustice and the deadening laudanum of injustice, and falls back on the body of the decisions to uphold him in his quackery. Justice demands that he take that fake corporation, made solely to evade the law, and shake its guts out and tell the men who put up this job, that he’ll put them all in jail for contempt of court if they try any such shenanigan in his jurisdiction again. That would be justice. This–this decision–is humbug and every one knows it. What’s more–it may be murder. For men can’t work on that slag dump ten hours a day without losing their lives.”
The captain tapped away at his sprocket. He had his own ideas about the sanctity of the courts. They were not to be overthrown so easily. The Doctor snorted: “Burn their bodies, and blear their minds, and then wail about our vicious lower classes–I’m getting to be an anarchist.”
He prodded his cane among the débris on the floor and then he began to twitch the loose skin of his lower face and smiled. “Thank you, Cap,” he chirped. “How good and beautiful a thing it is to blow off steam in a barn to your old army friend.”
The Captain looked around and smiled and the Doctor asked: “What was that you were saying about Violet Hogan?”
“I said I saw her to-day and she looked faded and old–she’s not so much older than my Emma–eh?”
“Still,” said the Doctor, “Violet’s had a tough time–a mighty tough time; three children in six years. The last one took most of her teeth; young horse doctor gave her some dope that about killed her; she’s done all the cooking, washing, scrubbing and made garden for the family in that time–up every morning at five, seven days in the week to get breakfast for Dennis–Emma would look broken if she’d had that.” The Doctor paused. “Like her mother–weak–vain–puts all of Denny’s wages on the children’s backs–Laura says Violet spends more on frills for those kids than we spend for groceries–and Violet goes around herself looking like the Devil before breakfast.” The Doctor rested his chin on his cane. “Remember her mother–Mrs. Mauling–funny how it breeds that way. The human critter, Cap, is a curious beast–but he does breed true–mostly.” The Doctor loafed, whistling, around the work shop, prodding at things with his cane, and wound up leaning against one end of the bench.
“Last day of the century,” he piped, “makes a fellow pause and study. I’ve seen fifty-three years of the old century–seen the electric light, the telephone, the phonograph, the fast printing press, the transcontinental railroad, the steam thresher, the gasoline engine–and all its wonders clear down to Judge Tom’s devil wagon. That’s a good deal for one short life. I’ve seen industry revolutionized–leaving the homes of the people, and herding into the great factories. I’ve seen steam revolutionize the daily habits of men, and distort their thoughts; one man can’t run a steam engine; it takes more than one man to own one. So have I seen capital rise in the world until it is greater than kings, greater than courts, greater than governments–greater than God himself as matters stand, Cap–I’m terribly afraid that’s true.”
The Doctor was serious. His high voice was calm, and he smoked a while in peace. “But,” he added reflectively–“Cap, I want to tell you something more wonderful than all; I’ve seen seven absolutely honest men elected this year to the State Senate–I’ve sounded them, felt them out, had all kinds of reports from all kinds of people on those seven men. Each man thinks he’s alone, and there are seven.”
The Doctor leaned over to the Captain and said confidentially, “Cap–we meet next week. Listen here. I was elected without a dollar of the old spider’s money. He fought me for that smelter law on the quiet. Now look here; you watch my smoke. I’m going to organize those seven, and make eight and you’re going to see some fighting.”
“You ain’t going to fight the party, are you, Doc?” asked the amazed Captain, as though he feared that the Doctor would fall dead if he answered yes. But the Doctor grinned and said: “Maybe–if it fights me.”
“Well, Doc–” cried the Captain, “don’t you think–”
“You bet I think–that’s what’s the matter. The smelter lawsuit’s made me think. They want to control government so they can have a license to murder. That’s what it means. Watch ’em blight Denny Hogan’s lungs down on the dump; watch ’em burn ’em up and crush ’em in the mines–by evading the mining laws; watch ’em slaughter ’em on the railroads; murder is cheap in this country–if you control government and get a slaughter license.”
The Doctor laughed. “That’s the old century–and say, Cap–I’m with the new. You know old Browning–he says:
“It makes me mad
To think what men will do an’ I am dead.”
The Doctor waved his cane furiously, and grinned as he threw back his head, laughed silently, kicked out one leg, and stood with one eye cocked, looking at the speechless Captain. “Well, Cap–speak up–what are you going to do about it?”
“’Y gory, Doc, you certainly do talk like a Populist–eh?” was all the Captain could reply. The Doctor toddled to the door, and standing there sang back: “Well, Cap–do you think the Lord Almighty laid off all the angels and quit work on the world when he invented Tom Van Dorn’s automobile–that it is the last new thing that will ever be tried?”
And with that, the Doctor went out into the alley and through his alley gate into his house. But the Captain’s mind was set going by the Doctor’s parting words. He was considering what might follow the invention of Tom Van Dorn’s automobile. There was that chain, and there was his sprocket. It would work–he knew it would work and save much power and much noise. But the sprocket must be longer, and stronger. Then, he thought, if the wire spokes and the ball-bearing and rubber tires of the bicycle had made the automobile possible, and now that they were getting the gasoline engine of the automobile perfected so that it would generate such vast power in such a small space–what if they could conserve and apply that power through his invention–what if the gasoline engine might not through his Household Horse some day generate and use a power that would lift a man off the earth? What then? As he tapped the bolts and turned the screws and put his little device together, he dreamed big dreams of the future when men should fly, and the boundaries of nations would disappear and tariffs would be impossible. This shocked him, and he tried to figure out how to prevent smuggling by flying machines; but as he could not, he dreamed on about the time when war would be abolished among civilized men, because of his invention.
So while he was dreaming in matter–forming the first vague nebulæ of coming events, the infinite intelligence washing around us all, floating this earth, and holding the stars in their courses, sent a long, thin fleck of a wave into the mind of this man who stood working and dreaming in the twilight while the old century was passing. And while he saw his vision, other minds in other parts of the earth saw their visions. Some of these myriad visions formed part of his, and his formed part of theirs, and all were part of the great vision that was brooding upon the bourne of time and space. And other visions, parts of the great vision of the Creator, were moving with quickening life in other minds and hearts. The disturbed vision of justice that flashed through the Doctor’s mind was a part of the vast cycle of visions that were hovering about this earth. It was not his alone, millions held part of it; millions aspired, they knew not why, and staked their lives upon their faith that there is a power outside ourselves that makes for righteousness. And as the waves of infinite, resistless, all-encompassing love laved the world that New Year’s night that cast the new Century upon the strange shores of time, let us hope that the dreams of strong men stirred them deeply that they might move wisely upon that mysterious tide that is drawing humanity to its unknown goal.