ductions made, he was stunned almost to cynicism by their results. Of course, no one indicated that they believed him guilty of theft, and in the main all accepted his defense as the true defense. But they found him guilty of folly—a folly with a woman. Whether it was merely a folly and not a sin, it appeared was not to greatly alter penalties.
Yet justice must be done these people. They felt sorry for their minister and showed it; and they only shrank from him to avoid showing something else that would hurt him. They still acknowledged their debts of personal gratitude to him, but now they experienced a feeling of superiority. Their weaknesses had overtaken them in private; his had caught up with him under the spotlight's glare. They looked upon him with commiseration, pityingly, but from a lofty height. Besides which, they accused him of an overt offense. He had brought shame on All People's. He had preached to them this morning upon the duty of being true; but he had himself not been true—to the proud self-interest of All People's.
This indignant concern for the reputation of All People's was rather a surprising revelation to Hampstead. He had fallen into the way of thinking that he had made All People's; that he and All People's were one. That the congregation could have any purpose that did not include his purpose was not thinkable. He had never conceived of it as a social organism, with self-consciousness, with pride, with a head to be held up and a reputation to be sustained. To him All People's was not a society of persons with a pose. It was an association of individuals, each more or less weak, more or less dependent in their spiritual nature upon each other and upon him; the whole banded together to help each other and to help others like themselves. He had thought of
