On the other hand, it does occasionally happen that, when I press the button, the bell rings; I myself, standing on the doormat, distinctly hear it; yet it is not heard by those upon whom I have called.

'I am so sorry,' exclaimed Mrs. Wilson, as she left the church last evening. 'I took my book on Thursday afternoon and strolled down to the summer-house at the foot of the garden; I must have become absorbed in the story; I did not hear the bell; and, when I came in, I found your card under the door.'

'I say,' cried Harry Blair, 'I am awfully sorry. I must have been at home when you called. But the bell is at the front of the house, and we happened to be at the back. The children were making such a din that we never heard you.'

Precisely! There are those whose bells we ring in vain. In the days in which I made up my mind to be a minister, I fell under the influence of the Rev. James Douglas, M.A., of Brixton, a most devout and scholarly man. He often took me for a walk on Clapham Common, and said things to me that I have never forgotten.

'When you are a minister,' he said one day, as we sat under the shelter of a giant oak, 'when you are a minister, you will find, wherever you go, that there are a certain number of people whom you are not fitted to influence. It is largely a matter of personality and temperament. Don't break your heart over it. Satisfy your conscience that you have done your duty by them, and then leave it at that!'

It was wise counsel. There are a certain number of bells that, rung by us, are not heard within.