He was, indeed, no adversary to meet alone in the open field--for one who could make him in a crowd a mere string of many to his harp.
The morning so long awaited came on a second Sunday after Trinity.

Cyrus Browett, in whose keeping was the very ark of the money covenant, alighted from his coupe under the _porte-cochere_ of candied Gothic and humbly took seat in his pew like a mere worshipper of God.
As such--a man among men--the young rector looked calmly down upon him, letting him sink into the crowd-entity which always became subject to him.
His rare, vibrant tones--tones that somehow carried the subdued light and warmth of stained glass--rolled out in moving volume: "The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him." Then, still as a mere worshipper of God, that Prince of the power of Mammon down in front knelt humbly to say after the young rector above him that he had erred and strayed like a lost sheep, followed too much the devices of his own heart, leaving undone those things he ought to have done, and doing those things which he ought not to have done; that there was no health in him; yet praying that he might, thereafter, lead a godly, righteous and sober life to the glory of God's holy name.

Even to Allan there was something affecting in this--a sort of sardonic absurdity in Browett's actually speaking thus.
The kneeling financier was indeed a gracious and lovely spectacle to the young clergyman, and in his next words, above the still-bended congregation, his tones grew warmly moist with an unction that thrilled his hearers as never before.

Movingly, indeed, upon the authority that God hath given to his ministers, did he declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins.
Wonderful, in truth, had it been if his hearers did not thrill, for the minister himself was thrilled as never before.

He, Allan Delcher Linford, was absolving and remitting the sins of a man whose millions were counted by the hundred, a god of money and of power--who yet cringed before him out there like one who feared and worshipped.
Nor did he here make the mistake that many another would have made.
Instead of preaching to Cyrus Browett alone--preaching at him--he preached as usual to his congregation.