Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/167



Gordon announced at the evening service that a million dollars had been subscribed to the new "Temple of Man," and that he had been constituted its sole trustee, the crowd burst into a storm of applause.

In vain he raised his big muscular hand over the tumult.

Troops of young men and women with flushed faces, some laughing, some crying, sprang from their seats, rushed to the platform and seized his hand.

The strains of the national hymn suddenly burst from the crowd, and they rose en masse singing it with triumphant peal. As its last note died away a woman's voice started "Nearer, My God, to Thee," the people caught it instantly and its mighty chorus rolled heavenward. The singing had in it the spontaneous rhythm of hearts transported by resistless feeling. For half an hour they stood and sang the old familiar hymns whose sentences were wet with the tears and winged with the hopes and mysteries of their lives.

Instead of a sermon, Gordon read his resignation as pastor of the Pilgrim Church.