On Christmas Day In The Evening

"The problem is -- " said the Reverend William Sewall, standing at the back of the church with his sister Margaret, and Guy Fernald, her husband, and Nan and Sam Burnett -- the four who had, as yet, no children, and so could best take time, on Christmas afternoon, to make the final arrangements for the evening -- "the problem is -- to do the right thing, to-night. It would be so mighty easy to do the wrong one. Am I the only man to stand in that pulpit -- and is it all up to me?"

He regarded the pulpit as he spoke, richly hung with Christmas greens and seeming eagerly to invite an occupant.