I have been in many a richer home where there was not a hundredth part of the true gentility--the gentility of unapologizing simplicity and kindness.
And after it was over and cleared away--the minister himself donning a long apron and helping his wife--and the chubby baby put to bed, we all sat around the table in the gathering twilight.
I think men perish sometimes from sheer untalked talk.

For lack of a creative listener they gradually fill up with unexpressed emotion.
Presently this emotion begins to ferment, and finally--bang!--they blow up, burst, disappear in thin air.

In all that community I suppose there was no one but the little faded wife to whom the minister dared open his heart, and I think he found me a godsend.

All I really did was to look from one to the other and put in here and there an inciting comment or ask an understanding question.

After he had told me his situation and the difficulties which confronted him and his small church, he exclaimed suddenly: "A minister should by rights be a leader, not only inside of his church, but outside it in the community." "You are right," I exclaimed with great earnestness; "you are right." And with that I told him of our own Scotch preacher and how he led and moulded our community; and as I talked I could see him actually growing, unfolding, under my eyes.
"Why," said I, "you not only ought to be the moral leader of this community, but you are!" "That's what I tell him," exclaimed his wife.
"But he persists in thinking, doesn't he, that he is a poor sinner ?" "He thinks it too much," she laughed.
"Yes, yes," he said, as much to himself as to us, "a minister ought to be a fighter!" It was beautiful, the boyish flush which now came into his face and the light that came into his eyes.