Page:The unhallowed harvest (1917).djvu/121

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116
THE UNALLOWED HARVEST

proval. A man with full black beard and black hair falling on his shoulders arose and called out:

"Mr. Presiden': Thees ees politique assembly, not prayer-meeting. We weesh that no clergy deescourse with us. I say ratha' put that preach' out."

But the sense of fair play that governs all American audiences seized now upon this one, and immediately there were cries of: "No! No! Give the preacher a chance! Farrar! Farrar!"

The cry deepened into a roar. The demand was insistent. Half the audience was on its feet yelling for "Farrar!" He was not unknown to most of them. The story of his sermons had gone abroad. They wanted to see him and to hear him. The chairman wavered, turned to consult with one of the vice-presidents of the meeting, and then called to the clergyman to come to the platform. It was an invitation that could not be refused, nor had the rector of Christ Church any thought of refusing it. Resenting Lamar's assault on Christianity, he welcomed the opportunity to reply to it. He made his way to the rostrum, mounted the steps, and turned and faced the audience now grown remarkably still. He was stalwart, clean-cut, fine featured. His garments were not of the clerical type. He appealed to the eyes of those who looked on him before he had spoken a word.

"My friends," he said, "I accept your invitation gladly. I want to deny the charges made against religion and the Church by the last speaker. I believe, with the man who replied to him from the floor, that the great need of the workingman to-day is the need of religion and the Church. Physical comforts are not the sole foundation for the happiness of mankind. History can never be properly interpreted from its economical side alone. There can be no just interpretation of it that leaves out God. Before food was, before clothes or homes or gold or silver were, before this world itself was, God was. And after all these