was enough to keep him dodging about the room the
whole evening.

He never missed a meeting, however. He had picked
up a few words of English by this time, and friends would
help him to understand. They were often very turbulent
meetings, with half a dozen men declaiming at once, in
as many dialects of English; but the speakers were all
desperately in earnest, and Jurgis was in earnest too, for
he understood that a fight was on, and that it was his
fight. Since the time of his disillusionment, Jurgis had
sworn to trust no man, except in his own family; but
here he discovered that he had brothers in affliction, and
allies. Their one chance for life was in union, and so
the struggle became a kind of crusade. Jurgis had al~
ways been a member of the church, because it was the
right thing to be, but the church had never touched him,
he left all that for the women. Here, however, was a
new religion -- one that did touch him, that took hold of
every fiber of him; and with all the zeal and fury of a
convert he went out as a missionary. There were many
non-union men among the Lithuanians, and with these
he would labor and wrestle in prayer, trying to show
them the right. Sometimes they would be obstinate and
refuse to see it, and Jurgis, alas, was not always patient!
He forgot how he himself had been blind, a short time
ago -- after the fashion of all crusaders since the original
ones, who set out to spread the gospel of Brotherhood by
force of arms.

[[107]]

p106 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p107w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p108

v?