They passed a little church lighted up for evening service: as if to give a meaning to the old man's words, they were chanting the one anthem of the world, the Gloria in Excelsis.

Hearing the deep organ-roll, the men stopped outside to listen: it heaved and sobbed through the night, as if bearing up to God the wrong of countless aching hearts, then was silent, and a single voice swept over the moors in a long, lamentable cry:--"Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us!" The men stood silent, until the hush was broken by a low murmur:--"For Thou only art holy." Holmes had taken off his hat, unconscious that he did it; he put it on slowly, and walked on.

What was it that Knowles had said to him once about mean and selfish taints on his divine soul?
"For Thou only art holy:" if there were truth in that! "How quiet it is!" he said, as they stopped to leave him.

It was,--a breathless quiet; the great streets of the town behind them were shrouded in snow; the hills, the moors, the prairie swept off into the skyless dark, a gray and motionless sea lit by a low watery moon.

"The very earth listens," he said.
"Listens for what ?" said the literal old Doctor.
"I think it listens always," said Vandyke, his eye on fire.