It was perfectly white, on a panel of thin wood, and stood out very conspicuously above the rear of the platform.

It was not directly behind the desk, but several feet at one side.
Philip had never made any allusion in his sermons to this feature of Calvary Church's architecture.

People had wondered sometimes that with his imaginative, poetical temperament he never had done so, especially once when a sermon on the crucifixion had thrilled the people wonderfully.

It might have been his extreme sensitiveness, his shrinking from anything like cheap sensation.
But now he stepped back--it was not far--and turning partly around, with one long arm extended toward the cross as if in imagination, he saw the Christ upon it, he exclaimed, "'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!' Yes-- "'In the cross of Christ I glory, Towering o'er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round----'" His voice suddenly ceased, he threw his arms up, and as he turned a little forward toward the congregation he was seen to reel and stagger back against the wall.

For one intense tremendous second of time he stood there with the whole church smitten into a pitying, horrified, startled, motionless crowd of blanched staring faces, as his tall, dark figure towered up with outstretched arms, almost covering the very outlines of the cross, and then he sank down at its foot.
A groan went up from the audience.