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Chapter XIX
The Wedding of the Annunciation

At the end of a year from the death of Gordon's father the divorce was granted, and Ruth elected to retain her married name.

The Temple of Man was rapidly rising. The building fronted three hundred feet on each cross street. Its great steel-ribbed dome, modeled on the capitol at Washington, was slowly climbing into the sky from the centre to dominate the architecture of the Metropolitan district.

The success of Gordon's meetings in the old Grand Opera House had been enormous. Its four thousand seats were filled and every inch of standing-room the police would allow. The religious element in Socialism had found in him its high priest. His eloquence, his magnetism, his daring, his aggressive and radical instinct for leadership made him at once their idol.

The prestige given him by the rapid building of his magnificent Temple in the heart of the wealth and splendour of the Metropolis, and the crush for admission by strangers who had read of him and his work, were adding daily to his power.