with that individual's own consent, of course, just as we secure the service
of our editors, by contributing from their credit-cards an indemnity to the
nation for the loss of his services in general industry. This idemnity paid the
nation for the individual answers to the salary in your day paid to the
individual himself; and the various applications of this principle leave private
initiative full play in all details to which national control is not applicable.
Now, as to hearing a sermon to-day, if you wish to do so, you can either go to a
church to hear it or stay at home.«
    »How am I to hear it if I stay at home?«
    »Simply by accompanying us to the music room at the proper hour and
selecting an easy chair. There are some who still prefer to hear sermons in
church, but most of our preaching, like our musical performances, is not in
public, but delivered in acoustically prepared chambers, connected by wire with
subscribers' houses. If you prefer to go to a church I shall be glad to
accompany you, but I really don't believe you are likely to hear anywhere a
better discourse than you will at home. I see by the paper that Mr. Barton is to
preach this morning, and he preaches only by telephone, and to audiences often
reaching 150,000.«
    »The novelty of the experience of hearing a sermon under such circumstances
would incline me to be one of Mr. Barton's hearers, if for no other reason,« I
said.
    An hour or two later, as I sat reading in the library, Edith came for me,
and I followed her to the music room, where Dr. and Mrs. Leete were waiting. We
had not more than seated ourselves comfortably when the tinkle of a bell was
heard, and a few moments after the voice of a man, at the pitch of ordinary
conversation, addressed us, with an effect of proceeding from an invisible
person in the room. This was what the voice said: -
 
                              Mr. Barton's Sermon.
 
        »We have had among us, during the past week, a critic from the
        nineteenth century, a living representative of the epoch of our great-
        grandparents. It would be strange if a fact so extraordinary had not
        somewhat strongly affected our imaginations. Perhaps most of us have
        been stimulated to some effort to realize the society of a century ago,
        and figure to ourselves what it must have been like to live then. In
        inviting you now to consider certain reflections upon this subject