the centre of the chapel.  The bronze lamp, and the candles always burning upon the altar, rather accented than dissipated the heavy shadows in the vaulted roof.  At no hour was it empty, but at morning prayer and at vespers the benches were apt to be filled, and groups of penitents or spectators were kneeling or standing on the floor.  At vespers there were sure to be carriages in front of the door, and among the kneeling figures were ladies who brought into these simple services for the poor something of the refinement of grace as it is in the higher circles.  Indeed, at the hour set apart for confession, there were in the boxes saints from up-town as well as sinners from the slums.  Sometimes the sinners were from up-town and the saints from the slums.

When the organ sounded, and through a low door in the chancel the priest entered, preceded by a couple of acolytes, and advanced swiftly to the reading-desk, there was an awed hush in the congregation.  One would not dare to say that there was a sentimental feeling for the pale face and rapt expression of the devotee.  It was more than that.  He had just come from some scene of suffering, from the bed of one dying; he was weary with watching.  He was faint with lonely vigils; he was visibly carrying the load of the poor and the despised.  Even Ruth Leigh, who had dropped in for half an hour in one of her daily rounds—­even Ruth Leigh, who had in her stanch, practical mind a contempt for forms and rituals, and no faith in anything that she could not touch, and who at times was indignant at the efforts wasted over the future of souls concerning which no one knew anything, when there were so many bodies, which had inherited disease and poverty and shame, going to worldly wreck before so-called Christian eyes—­even she could scarcely keep herself from adoring this self-sacrificing spirit.  The woes of humanity grieved him as they grieved her, and she used to say she did not care what he believed so long as he gave his life for the needy.

It was when he advanced to the altar-rail to speak that the man best appeared.  His voice, which was usually low and full of melody, could be something terrible when it rose in denunciation of sin.  Those who had traveled said that he had the manner of a preaching friar—­the simple language, so refined and yet so homely and direct, the real, the inspired word, the occasional hastening torrent of words.  When he had occasion to address one of the societies of ladies for the promotion of something among the poor, his style and manner were simplicity itself.  One might have said there was a shade of contempt in his familiar and not seldom slightly humorous remarks upon society and its aims and aspirations, about which he spoke plainly and vigorously.  And this was what the ladies liked.  Especially when he referred to the pitifulness of class distinctions, in the light of the example of our Lord, in our short pilgrimage in this world.  This unveiling and denunciation made them somehow feel nearer to their work, and, indeed, while they sat there, co-workers with this apostle of righteousness.