THE TEMPTATION

As they drew near the church the crowd in the streets increased. All Baltimore seemed to have turned out to hear the new preacher. They pressed through the throng and entered the church but as soon as they got within the door they were brought to a halt. The place was packed, every nook and corner was filled with its full allowance of uncomfortable humanity. So closely were they crowded, that no one could see anything except the persons directly in front of them.

After waiting a while, the crowd gradually, with that peculiar indefinable movement there is in even the densest throng, began to loosen. The pressure on the door was slightly lessened and the our party by dint of pushing, waiting, squeezing, waiting again and so managing to insert themselves between the people, succeeded in forcing their way to the steps leading up to the choir-loft. Hortense who was ahead mounted two of the steps and then turned to look at the crowd below her. N

Never had she seen a more motley assembly. Negroes and whites, working men and elegant youths all together. A beautiful girl with a graceful figure and dressed in those light-veil-like gowns that add so much to the charm of the Southern city was forced close up to a villainous looking Italian who was trying to push past her.

The crowd for a moment would be still and then without any definable cause, the swaying and pushing would begin again. The heat was intense. The noises of the street and the lig came through the widely-open windows adding to the confused hum within. To avoid the heat the lights were turned low and but the moon shone in with through all the making strange shalights and shadows through the stained windows and making that strange crowd look still more weird.

Far away in the end of the church hardly distinguishable in the dim light stood the young preacher in his priestly robes waiting for the people to be still. At last he raised his hand and began his prayer. None could kneel in that densely packed throng and so all simply bowed their heads.

This attitude of prayer to an one observing it and not participating in it has always a strange fascination. The sight of all those people bowing before a power that they dimly recognize, little children, aged grandfathers and strong men all joining in that act of prayer, is. It is peculiarly impressive. It is a solemn and a melancholy sight to the skeptic bringing filling to him him with disquieting reflections on the real worth of things. What does it all mean? Why this universal bending before, what, a God of wrath, a God of love which or neither? Are we really only the victims of blind force.

“Into this universe and why not knowing,

Nor whence like water willy-nilly flowing;

And out of it, as Wind along the wastes,

I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.”

Why? Why? thus Hortense, her whole soul filled with longing thought and questioned, “A longing and for what,” she muttered, “I would not be as they.” What then? ” she did not know. She struggled with her thought, she tried to throw off the weight, the intolerable burden of solving for herself the great world-questions.

“After all” she continued to herself dreamily Omar Khayyam is right. “The me within thee blind” “While you live drink:— for, once dead, you never shall return; Dream-life is the only life worth living.” And then she continued with new fervor, she muttered looking at the preacher over that sea of bowed heads, “Go on, I’ll catch your ecstacy. I’ll bow my soul to the melody of your voice and yield myself to all the suggestions of the moment. Let me only be at rest and cease to wonder why, why, why. There is no answer, there shall no longer be a questioning.” Her muttering ceased and with it, the prayer came to an end. The heads were raised and again a movement began among the crowd. Once such a kind of one when a very young women went with some woman

More people were forced in front of Hortense and she stepped back on to a landing her. Behind her there were also some people but not so tightly pressed together. The girls girl was forced back against one of the men standing in a corner, her friends were just below her. She had not noticed this man before, she did not look at him now, but he , taking advantage of the position , leaned toward her rather heavily. She felt his touch. At first she was oblivious to only half-aware of it, but soon she became conscious of his presence. The sensuous impressions had done their work only too well. The magic charm of a human touch was on her was in her and she could did not stir. She loathed herself but still she did not move.

Now she became conscious that possibly her friends would notice her proximity to this fellow. Even that did not stir her. Her busy brain was active in weaving excuses. She remembered her well-known tendency to absent-mindedness. “I can tell them I was unconscious and grow indignant if they accuse me.”

The voice of the preacher continued off in the distance but the words did not penetrate her brain. At last she became unconscious of the voice and of the crowd, she only felt the human touch and thought of the reasons she should give for her position.

At last she noticed her aunt friend motioning to her. “Not yet,” she said to herself, “I won’t see her.” Then with a quick revulsion she continued fiercely, “Liar and coward,” will you continue this, have you no sense of shame?” and all the while her eyes were fixed on the preacher and and she looked the embodiment of intelligent interest.

She seemed to herself, to be growing apathetic. She tried to force herself to move but she could not. She upbraided herself, she grew more violent in her thoughts and yet she did not move.

At last one of her cousins forced her way to her, touched her arm and said that her mother wanted to go home. Hortense stepped down together they made their way out of the crowded church.