“Mr. Strong, I want to be a Christian.  I want to join the church and lead a different life.”

Philip clasped his hand, while tears rolled over the man’s face.  He stayed and talked with him, and prayed with him, and when he finally went home the minister was convinced it was as strong and true a conversion as he had ever seen.  He at once related the story to his wife, who had gone on before to get dinner.

“Why, Philip,” she exclaimed, when he said the sexton wanted to be baptized and unite with the church at the next communion, “Calvary Church will never allow him to unite with us!”

“Why not?” asked Philip, in amazement.

“Because he is a negro,” replied his wife.

Philip stood a moment in silence with his hat in his hand, looking at his wife as she spoke.

CHAPTER XV.

“Well,” said Philip, slowly, as he seemed to grasp the meaning of his wife’s words, “to tell the truth, I never thought of that!” He sat down and looked troubled.  “Do you think, Sarah, that because he is a negro the church will refuse to receive him to membership?  It would not be Christian to refuse him.”

“There are other things that are Christian which the Church of Christ on earth does not do, Philip,[”] replied his wife, almost bitterly.  “But whatever else Calvary Church may do or not do, I am very certain it will never consent to admit to membership a black man.”

“But here[sic] are so few negroes in Milton that they have no church.  I cannot counsel him to unite with his own people.  Calvary Church must admit him!” Philip spoke with the quiet determination which always marked his convictions when they were settled.

“But suppose the committee refuses to report his name favorably to the church—­what then?” Mrs. Strong spoke with a gleam of hope in her heart that Philip would be roused to indignation that he would resign and leave Milton.

Philip did not reply at once.  He was having an inward struggle with his sensitiveness and his interpretation of his Christ.  At last he said: 

“I don’t know, Sarah.  I shall do what I think He would.  What I shall do afterward will also depend on what Christ would do.  I cannot decide it yet.  I have great faith in the Church on earth.”

“And yet what has it done for you so far, Philip?  The business men still own and rent the saloons and gambling houses.  The money spent by the church is all out of proportion to its wealth.  Here you give away half your salary to build up the kingdom of God, and more than a dozen men in Calvary who are worth fifty and a hundred thousand dollars give less than a hundredth part of their income to Christian work in connection with the church.  It makes my blood boil, Philip, to see how you are throwing your life away in these miserable tenements, and wasting your appeals on a church that plainly does not intend to do, does not want to do, as Christ would have it.  And I don’t believe it ever will.”