Page:The unhallowed harvest (1917).djvu/354

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"BLACK AS THE PIT"
349

known fear. Indeed, he had not yet acknowledged his defeat. He was hurt, grieved, humiliated, but not conquered. His spirit was not that of the Hebrew psalmist pouring out his soul in the de profundis. It was rather that of Henly's hero thundering his pagan defiance at fate. The lines came into his mind now as he stood gazing from his window into the sunlight on the lawn, and brought to him a strange and unchristian consolation.

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

"In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed."

At the hour for service he entered the church, robed himself, and followed the poor remnant of his choir to the chancel in reverent processional. But when he looked out upon his congregation he experienced a shock more painful to him than that caused by the rioter's brick. There was but a handful of worshipers in the church. Pew after pew was empty. Great sections of pews were wholly devoid of occupants. Men and women whose devotion to the Church had led them, up to this time, against their inclinations, to continue their attendance on its services, were unwilling to-day, after the events of the past week, to hear the prayers and lessons read, or a sermon preached, by a priest who had so forgotten the duty and the dignity of his sacred calling. And of the toilers who had crowded the pews and overflowed into the aisles scarcely more than a month before, only a beggarly few were here to-day. Rich and poor alike had deserted and repudiated him. Even Ruth Tracy was not in her accustomed