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Rh woman had followed the example of the lookers-on at John Bradley's funeral, and had come to hear the minister preach. The story of his address at the grave on the preceding Sunday had spread through the ranks of the toilers, and was responsible in no small degree for the size of the congregation to-day. People wanted to hear, in his own pulpit, the clergyman who could stand by the open grave of a common laborer, one not given either to religious beliefs or practices, and say things acceptable to all of the dead man's friends, believers and disbelievers alike. So they had come, men in rusty attire, with stolid countenances and awkward bearing, women with bent shoulders and toil-hardened hands, and care-worn faces looking out from under the brims of hats and bonnets that had done Sunday service for unknown years. They did not respond to the prayers, nor join in the litany, nor kneel nor rise in accordance with the rubrics. But they were silent, attentive, respectful. They came not so much to worship as to listen.

The text that morning was the question asked by those offended aristocrats of old:

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?"

The preacher called the attention of his hearers to the fact that the founder of the Christian religion, in His early manhood, had been a laborer. He had gone about, with hammer and axe, working for wages, as did the carpenter of to-day. He was born of humble parents, reared in adversity, hardened to toil. Why should not the wage-earner of the twentieth century listen to His gospel and follow in His footsteps? His message was especially to the humble and the poor. His condemnation was for the haughty and self-sufficient rich. He founded His Church on the brotherhood of man. Its very existence was declaratory of the solidarity of the human race. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ