“What’s the use? what’s the use?” he said to himself, and his answer to the question was a laugh.

The laugh, though neither loud nor boisterous, but merely a mild evidence of good-nature that was not to be clouded by vexations, had a disagreeable sound to Redman Rush.  He looked contemptuous, and felt more than he looked, so that it was really surprising to see him linger for such conversation as this of the organist, and to hear him ask,

“How do you teach your choir?  Whose fault is it that they cannot learn?”

“Their own fault,” answered Summerman.  “They’ve got to learn more than the notes.  So they complain.  You can’t make a singer out of a note-book.  I’ve tried that enough.  Now I try to show them that peace means a riddance of selfishness, and that selfishness is the devil’s device for holding the world together.  Not God’s; for his idea is love, and was in the beginning.  Wasn’t the world given to understand, that the life which was born was the love, truth, and beauty of the world, and that by Him all truth and beauty must live?  They can’t see it.  I can’t make a man or woman understand that an idea must be the centre around which the life will revolve.  They come to practise, not to hear preaching, they say.”

It seemed as if at this, and because of this announcement, Redman Rush drew himself apart and up, loftily, and with a gloomy defiance looked around him.  When Summerman’s eyes turned toward him, he seemed gazing into distance, and gave no indication that he had heard a word of what had been said.  The organist was disappointed.  He had hoped again for criticism; but he went on, perhaps with some suspicion of the correctness of his convictions—­at least he had not said all he wished to say.

“We must have a centre—­an idea,” said he.  “And if that be self, then the devil’s to pay.  Christ is the only absolute idea—­the only possible giver of peace, therefore.  I mean by Him, His doctrine.  He stands for that, being Truth, as he said, you know.  They came out better on the ’good will to men,’ if you noticed.  It was easier for them to believe in the eternal good will of God, this morning.  But they failed in the next line, ‘We bless Thee, we give thanks to Thee, for Thy great glory!’ If they knew more they would sing better.  You know what was said, sir, ’Milton himself could not teach a boy more than he could learn.’  That’s the amount of it.”

Now and then, during these last words, spoken so evidently by a man who liked to talk because he looked for sympathy, and hoped for it, the face of the stranger had changed in its expression; there seemed to be less fierceness, more sadness in his gloom.  But the change was so slight as to be hardly perceptible, even to the eyes of Summerman.  When he paused in speaking he had still no answer.

They walked on a few paces in silence, when suddenly the organist stepped up to the door of a house that opened on the sidewalk, and unlocked it.