Mrs. Molesworth twisted her neck in an endeavor to see if he had notes; Colonel Parton decided promptly that here was no orator; Belle smiled at Rosalind across the aisle, thinking of the detective.

In the president’s gaze, as it rested upon the assembly, was the same genial kindliness that had attracted Belle when she first met him on Main Street.  It seemed to draw his audience closer to him, to make of it a circle of friends.  His manner was simple, his tone almost conversational.  At the announcement of his text Celia leaned forward with a sudden conviction that here was a message for her:—­

“It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”

Varied were the opinions afterward expressed of the sermon that followed.  What Celia carried away with her was something like this:—­

“I shall speak to you this morning,” he said, “upon a subject that touches each one of us very nearly, from the oldest to the youngest; for whatever our circumstances, whether we are rich or poor, learned or simple, whether our lot is cast in protected homes or in the midst of the world’s great battle-field, our task is one and the same:  to become citizens of the Kingdom of God.  This being so, we cannot think too often or too much about this Kingdom, or inquire too minutely into its laws, or ask ourselves too earnestly why it is that so few of us accept the gift in anything like its fulness.

“Although it is offered as a gift, there are conditions to be fulfilled, difficulties to be overcome.  Our Lord recognized this when He said that the gate was strait and the way narrow, but He also said that this Kingdom was worth any price, or was beyond all price, to be obtained at any sacrifice.  He emphasized this by a strong figure.  It was better to enter into life maimed, He said,—­with hand or foot cut off—­rather than to miss life altogether....  The conditions of entrance into the Kingdom are apparently so simple it is strange we find them so difficult.  I think they may be sifted down to two:  love and faith,—­the love from which service springs, the faith that means joy and peace.  If we are to be the children of our Heavenly Father we must love, and we must have in our hearts that joy which grows out of trust.

“Jesus said, ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God.’  If we do this we need concern ourselves with nothing else, and by concern I mean burden ourselves.  The daily round—­the vast machinery of life—­must go on, but after all only he who belongs to the Kingdom is fitted to meet its problems.  He brings to them a calm confidence, a clear vision.  His heart does not beat quick with hate or envy.  His energy is not weakened by worry.  His sight is not dimmed by doubt....  Perhaps some of you are saying—­what is so often said—­that it is easy to preach; and you ask how one can cease to worry when the path is dark before him; how one can look upon the terrible problems of sin and suffering, and not feel their crushing weight.  If what I am saying this morning were simply what I think about it, you are right to doubt.  But these are not my words.  Can you believe that our Lord when He told His disciples to seek the Kingdom and all other needful things would be added, was simply giving utterance to a beautiful but impracticable theory?  For my part, I cannot.