McNeil needs is to have
some one show an interest in him. Have you a large church, Mr.
Wynkoop?"
"Not large if judged from an Eastern standpoint," he confessed, with
some regret. "Our present membership is composed of eight women and
three men, but the congregational attendance is quite good, and
constantly increasing."
"Only eight women and three men!" breathlessly. "And you have been
laboring upon this field for five years! How could it be so small?"
Wynkoop pushed back his chair, anxious to redeem himself in the
estimation of this fair stranger.
"Miss Spencer," he explained, "it is perhaps hardly strange that you
should misapprehend the peculiar conditions under which religious labor
is conducted in the West. You will undoubtedly understand all this
better presently. My parish comprises this entire mining region, and I
am upon horseback among the foothills and up in the ranges for fully a
third of my time. The spirit of the mining population, as well as of
the cattlemen, while not actually hostile, is one of indifference to
religious thought. They care nothing whatever for it in the abstract,
and have no use for any minister, unless it may be to marry their
children or bury their dead.
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