Passing through the vestibule doors, he entered the church and found a seat near the entrance.  Father Cruse, in full vestments, was officiating.  He was before the altar at the moment, his back to the congregation.  Most of them were working people who had only their evenings free, and for whom these services were held:  girls from the department stores, servants with an evening out, trainmen from the Elevated, off duty for an hour or two, small storekeepers whose places closed early, with their wives and children beside them, all under the spell of the hushed interior.  Some prayed without moving, their heads bowed; others kept their eyes fixed on the priest.  One or two had their faces turned toward the choir-loft, completely absorbed in the full, deep tones that rolled now and then through the responses.

Nothing of all this impressed Felix at first.  He had always regarded the Roman Catholic church as embodying a religion adapted only to the ignorant and the superstitious.  But, as he looked about on the rapt body of worshippers, he suddenly wondered if there were not something in its beliefs, forms, and ceremonies that he had hitherto missed.

The wonder grew upon him as he watched the worshippers, his eyes resting now on a figure of a woman on her knees before the small altar at his left, her half-naked baby flat on its back beside her; and again that of an unkempt gray-haired man, his clothes old and ragged, his body bent, his lips trembling in supplication.  All at once, and for the first time in his life, he began to realize the existence of a something all-powerful, to which these people appealed, a something beneficent which swept their faces free of care, as a light drives out darkness, and sent them home with new hope and courage.  Religion had played no part in his life.  From his boyhood he had made his fight without it.  Had they tried and failed and, disheartened in their failure, sought at last for higher help, realizing that no one man was strong enough to make the fight of life alone?

As he asked himself these questions, the personality of the priest began to exert its influence over him.  He followed his movements, the dignity and solemnity with which he exercised his functions, the reverential tones of his voice, the adoration shown in his every act and gesture.  And as he watched there arose another question —­one he had often debated within himself:  Were these people about him calmed and rested by the magnetic personality of the big-chested, strong-armed man; were they aided by the seductions of music, incense, and color, including the very vestments that hung from his broad shoulders; or did the calm and rest and aid proceed from a source infinitely higher, more powerful, more compelling, as had been shown in the case of the would-be murderer cowed by the sight of a sacred emblem?  And if there were two personalities, two influences, two dominant powers, one of man and the other of God, which one had he, Felix O’Day, come here to invoke?