she had entered into her musical work, in which the church divided attention with the drawing-room and an occasional concert.  She sat now in pleased triumph and had no ears for the opening words of the young man’s sermon.  But it dawned upon her gradually that he was speaking from the words, “in spirit and in truth.”  He spoke of the former worship which dealt with externals of place and method—­with “carnal ordinances imposed until a time of reformation”; and then of a new era of worship which Christ had brought in, wherein true worshipers draw nigh to God, not with sensuous offerings, but “in spirit and in truth.”

Winifred could not follow all that he said, for it seemed a new and strange language for the most part, but she gathered this:  that somehow Christ had opened the way for all believers into the very spiritual presence of God, into a holy place not made with hands (and the more real because it was not, being God-made and eternal), and that there worshipers stood before eyes of perfect discernment, unclothed by outward semblance, and offered “spiritual sacrifices” unto Him.  It was a beautiful picture, but awful.  Winifred shuddered as she thought of the august Presence that inhabited the Holiest of All that the minister spoke of, and wondered if she would dare approach it.  To stand in naked spirit before eyes of flame and to be read through and through, daring to speak no unmeant word, but only that which the heart designed, in absolute sincerity!  Was worship in spirit such a real thing as that?  Was she a true worshiper?  Why was she there that morning?  She glanced about the building, with its arches and columns, its stained windows, and almost perfect arrangement of form and color.  But the minister was saying: 

“This material structure is not the house of God.  No longer is God localized to our faith as in the days of symbol and shadow, when surely Jerusalem was ‘the place where men ought to worship.’  For the symbol has given place to the ‘truth,’ and in that, ‘in spirit,’ men worship.  But while in every place, or, better still, without reference to place—­’neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem’—­true worshipers shall find Him, still His spiritual people form a temple for His manifestation, wherever they are gathered, and there is He.  ’In the midst’ He takes His rightful place, and that place we must accord Him—­the center of our heart’s attention and worship.”

Winifred resumed her question.  Why had she come?  Was it to meet that One, to gaze in spirit upon His pierced hands and side, as the minister was saying, and to rejoice in Him as the risen Lord?  She did not quite know what he meant.  She went back over the morning’s experience, beginning with her dressing-room, when before her mirror she donned her new and very pretty silk dress and arranged all her faultless toilet, adjusting the modish hat that became so well her own type of beauty, fitted on the fresh, dainty gloves that should clasp her beloved