God was conquering.  Unceasing through the ages, God’s voice had crept round man, seeking entry.  Through the long darkness of that dim beginning, when man knew no law but self, unceasing God had striven:  until at last one here and there, emerging from the brute, had heard—­had listened to the voice of love and pity, and in that hour, unknowing, had built to God a temple in the wilderness.

Labourers together with God.  The mighty host of those who through the ages had heard the voice of God and had made answer.  The men and women in all lands who had made room in their hearts for God.  Still nameless, scattered, unknown to one another:  still powerless as yet against the world’s foul law of hate, they should continue to increase and multiply, until one day they should speak with God’s voice and should be heard.  And a new world should be created.

God.  The tireless Spirit of eternal creation, the Spirit of Love.  What else was it that out of formlessness had shaped the spheres, had planned the orbits of the suns.  The law of gravity we named it.  What was it but another name for Love, the yearning of like for like, the calling to one another of the stars.  What else but Love had made the worlds, had gathered together the waters, had fashioned the dry land.  The cohesion of elements, so we explained it.  The clinging of like to like.  The brotherhood of the atoms.

God.  The Eternal Creator.  Out of matter, lifeless void, he had moulded His worlds, had ordered His endless firmament.  It was finished.  The greater task remained:  the Universe of mind, of soul.  Out of man it should be created.  God in man and man in God:  made in like image:  fellow labourers together with one another:  together they should build it.  Out of the senseless strife and discord, above the chaos and the tumult should be heard the new command:  “Let there be Love.”

The striking of the old church clock recalled her to herself.  But she had only a few minutes’ walk before her.  Mary had given up her Church work.  It included the cleaning, and she had found it beyond her failing strength.  But she still lived in the tiny cottage behind its long strip of garden.  The door yielded to Joan’s touch:  it was seldom fast closed.  And knowing Mary’s ways, she entered without knocking and pushed it to behind her, leaving it still ajar.

And as she did so, it seemed to her that someone passing breathed upon her lips a little kiss:  and for a while she did not move.  Then, treading softly, she looked into the room.

It welcomed her, as always, with its smile of cosy neatness.  The spotless curtains that were Mary’s pride:  the gay flowers in the window, to which she had given children’s names:  the few poor pieces of furniture, polished with much loving labour:  the shining grate:  the foolish china dogs and the little china house between them on the mantelpiece.  The fire was burning brightly, and the kettle was singing on the hob.