headlines, because from the editor's standpoint it thus becomes news, and late Sunday night, which is the scarcest hour of the whole week for news, there is more joy in the "city room" over one sermon that breathes the fiery spirit of sensation than over ninety and nine which need no hell and damnation in which to express the tender gospel of Jesus. John read it with a sense of wrath, of outrage, and of humiliation. That night he launched himself at the study door of his pastor.
"I was very sorry you did not hear my sermon last night," began Doctor Campbell blandly, sensing the advantage of striking first.
"Brother Campbell, I have come to arraign you for that sermon," retorted John, with an immediate outburst of feeling. "I say that you spoke what you did not know. I say," and his voice almost broke with the weight of its own earnestness, "I say that you bore false witness!"
The amazed minister's mouth opened, but John repressed his utterance with a gesture.
"You will say you preached your convictions. I say you preached your prejudice, your ignorance. I say you bore false witness against struggling women, against aspiring men, against those of whose bitter battlings you know nothing."
The Reverend Charles Thompson Campbell leaned back aghast. No man had ever presumed to talk to him like this, no man of twice his years and spiritual attainments; yet here was this stripling not only talking to him like this, but with a fervor of unction in his utterance that made his upbraiding sound half inspired.
"You are condemning the stage as an institution," went on John scornfully. "You might as well condemn the printing press as an institution. You discriminate with regard to newspapers and books. Do the same with
