And then the voices trailed off into the night and the secret service man heard no more.

An hour passed, and still the two figures continued to walk back and forth side by side. The secret service man still maintained his position at the foot of the statue. Far off a clock on some tower struck two. Rows of lights that had been like soft points marking building outlines faded out. But the city still lay there below the terrace, glowing at regular intervals with the public lamps that burn all night.

At last the two figures came up to the top of the wall above the statue and paused there. The President bowed deeply. The other figure laid a hand upon his arm, spoke in a low, earnest voice, then walked slowly across the terrace and disappeared.

The President stood alone, his head bared, watching the Man until he had been lost in the night. Then he slowly came down the steps to the place where the officer was waiting.

When he had come nearer, the officer could see tears on his face. The President did not attempt to conceal his emotions.

“Randall,” he said, as he asked the officer to walk by his side back to the White House, “I have had the greatest experience in my life during the last two hours. I have had an interview with Jesus.”

The secret service man was an officer, but he was also a human being. (How often the public thinks that a human being in a public uniform is something other than a man with emotions like any other.) Randall, often taken into confidence by the President, replied, “I knew it was he when he spoke. I could not help hearing the first words.”

“He asked who you were when he saw you, and wanted me to give you his greeting and blessing.”

“He remembered me!”

“It is like him. Who on earth is his equal? Randall, he gave me inestimable counsel. His rule of life is God-like. But he is the most cheerful, courageous, hopeful spirit I ever met. I feel like a new man for seeing him.”

The President and his officer entered the gates of the White House at three o’clock. The city lay quiet and hushed, as if it were silent under the brooding of the Divine Spirit.

On that same night Jasper Carter could not sleep. He had come back to his room in the hotel and his evening had been spent in aimless unrest. He tried to read a book and found himself wandering in thought back to the moment when Jesus passed by, saying, “Follow me!”