"And they trample on Him. In the streets, in the senate, in high places. And He says, 'Who is on My side?' My children, my brethren, we have lived long in a time of ease and safety; we have been long untried by aught but the ordinary troubles of life, untrained by the imminent issues of life and death. Now, in these late years of the world, it has pleased the Almighty to try us; and who is on His side? Who is prepared to put the unseen before the seen, honour before life, God before man, chivalry before baseness, the Church before the world? Who is on His side? Spurned in this little corner of His creation, bruised and bleeding and trampled under foot, yet ruler of earth and heaven, life and death, judgment and eternity, ruler of all the countless worlds of space, He comes! He comes! He comes, God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to be! And who is on His side?"
As the last word fell from his lips, and the light above his head went suddenly out, and darkness fell on the breathless hush, the listening hundreds, an indescribable wave of emotion passed through the crowd. Men stirred their feet with a strange, stern sound, that spreading, passed in muttered thunder to the vaults; while women sobbed, and here and there shrieked and prayed aloud. From the altar a priest in a voice that shook with feeling blessed the congregation; then, even as I awoke from a trance of attention, Madame touched my arm, and signed to me to follow her, and gliding quickly from her place, led the way down the aisle. Before the preacher's last words had ceased to ring in my ears or my heart had forgotten to be moved, we were walking under the stars with the night air cooling our faces; a moment, and we were in the house and stood again in the lighted salon where I had first found Madame Catinot.
Before I knew what she was going to do, she turned to me with a swift movement, and laid both her bare hands on my arm; and I saw that the tears were running down her face. "Who is on My side?" she cried, in a voice that thrilled me to the soul, so that I started where I stood. "Who is on My side? Oh, surely you! Surely you, Monsieur, whose fathers' swords were drawn for God and the King! Who, born to guide, are surely on the side of light! Who, noble, will never leave the task of government to the base! O----" and there, breaking off before I could answer, she turned from me with her hands clasped to her face. "O God!" she cried with sobs, "give me this man for Thy service."