In Hornham, the vast majority of a poor and teeming population was quite without interest in any religious matter. The chapels of the various sects were attended by the residuum, the congregations at St. Elwyn's were large—to the full holding capacity of the mother church and the smaller mission building—and a fair proportion of people worshipped at St. Luke's, the only other church in the neighbourhood.

Mr. Carr, the vicar of St. Luke's, was a man of about thirty-five. He had taken a good degree at Cambridge, spent a few years in various curacies, and had been appointed vicar of St. Luke's, Hornham, which was in the gift of an Evangelical body known as Simon's Trustees, about four years before Mr. Hamlyn had thrown Hornham into its present state of religious war.

The vicar of St. Luke's was a man of considerable mental power. He was unmarried, had no private means, and lived a lonely, though active, life in his small and ill-built vicarage. In appearance, he was tall, somewhat thin, and he wore a pointed, close-cropped beard and moustache. His face was somewhat melancholy, but when he was moved or interested, the smile that came upon it was singularly sweet. In the ordinary business of life, he was reserved and shy. He had none of the genial Irish bonhomie of Blantyre, the wholesome breezy boyishness of Stephens, or the grim force of King. He had a "personality"—to the eye—but he failed to sustain the impression his appearance made in talk. He was of no use in a drawing-room and very nearly a failure in any social gathering. Those few members of his flock with whom, now and again, he had to enter into purely social relations, said of him: "Mr. Carr is a thorough gentleman, but the poor fellow is dreadfully shy. He wants a wife; perhaps she'd liven him up a bit."

Such was the man in private life. In his clerical duties, as a priest—or, as he would have put it, a pastor—his personal character was sunk and merged in his office as completely as that of Father Blantyre himself. His sermons were full of earnest exhortation, his private ministrations were fervent and helpful, and there was a power in his ministry that was felt by all with whom he came in contact.

He was distinctly and entirely what is known as an "Evangelical," using that fine word in the best and noblest sense. He belonged to a school of thought which is rapidly becoming merged in and overlapped by others, sometimes to its betterment, but more frequently to its destruction, but which standing by itself is a powerful force.

He did not realise the state of transition in which he and other men of his school must necessarily stand to-day. Their position, admirable as it often is, is but a compromise. He did not as yet realise this.

Of Blantyre and the people at St. Elwyn's he knew little or nothing. He had met the clergy there once or twice upon official occasions, but that was all. He was too busy with his own work to have much time to attend to that of other people, but he had the natural distaste of his school and bringing-up for ceremonial and teaching of which he had no experience, and merely regarded as foreign, anti-English, and on the whole dangerous.

He was not a bigot, and the leading feature in his religion was this: He assigned an absolute supremacy to Holy Scripture as the only rule of faith and practice, the only test of truth, the only judge of controversy. He did not think that there was any guide for man's soul co-equal or co-ordinate with the Bible. He did not care to accept such statements as "the Church says so," "primitive antiquity says so," or "the Councils and the Fathers also say so,"—unless it could be shown to his satisfaction that what is said is in harmony with Scripture.

Disregarding as superfluous all external and "vicarious" form in religion, he attached paramount importance to the work and office of our Lord, and the highest place to the inward work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man. And he attached tremendous importance to the outward and visible work of the Holy Ghost in the heart of man. His supreme belief was that the true grace of God is a thing that will always make itself manifest in the behaviour, tastes, ways, and choices, of him who has it. He thought, therefore, that it was illogical to tell men that they are "children of God, and members of Christ, and heirs of the kingdom of Heaven" unless they had really overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. But he could not be stern or menacing in his dealings with souls. The mercy of God was more in his thoughts, always and at all times, than the wrath and judgment of God.

His attitude toward the pressing questions that were agitating the Church of England, all over England, was in logical correspondence with his beliefs. There was much within the Church that he had not understood or realised as yet, but he was no Hamlyn, to break down and destroy all that has made the Church of England what it is.

He neither undervalued the Church nor thought lightly of her privileges. In sincere and loyal attachment to her, he would give place to none. His apprehension of churchmanship was limited, that was all.

Nor did he—as far as he knew—under-value the Christian ministry. He looked upon it as a high and honourable office instituted by Christ Himself, and on priests as God's ambassadors, God's messengers, God's stewards and overseers. Nevertheless he looked upon what he knew as "sacerdotalism" and "priestcraft" with unfeigned dislike and uneasiness.

He believed in baptism as the appointed means of regeneration and that it conveyed grace ex opere operato; a position in which he was a little in advance of some of his school. His views on the Eucharist were hardly so sound, though there was nothing in them absolutely antagonistic to the truths which he had not yet realised. He certainly did not regard Holy Communion as the chief service in the Church, its central point.

On outward things, he was sane enough. He liked handsome churches, good ecclesiastical architecture, a well-ordered ceremonial, and a well-conducted service. If any one had told Mr. Carr that he was as nearly as possible "Catholic" in his views, that if they were logically pushed forward to their proper development he would be practically one with the St. Elwyn's people, he would first have been startled somewhat unpleasantly, and then he would have laughed incredulously.

And if some one had gone to Blantyre and told him that Carr was thus, he would have smiled rather sadly to think that his informant had realised the truths taught by the Anglican Church in a very limited way.

This mutual misunderstanding between the only two schools of thought in the Church of England that have enduring value is very common. The extreme Protestants are not church-people at all in any right sense of the word. The "Broad" party are confused with their own shifting surmises from day to day, and make too many "discoveries" to have real and lasting influence. But the "High Church" people and the pious "Evangelicals" are extraordinarily close to one another, and neither party realises the fact, while both would repudiate it. Yet both schools of opinion are, after all, occupied with one end and aim to the exclusion of all others—the attaining of personal holiness.

It was on a bright morning that Mr. Carr came down-stairs and breakfasted, after he had read prayers with his two servants. There was no daily service in St. Luke's, though evensong was said on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He read his morning paper for a few moments, then put it down and pushed his plate away. He was unable to eat, this morning.

He got up and walked uneasily about the room. His face was troubled and sad. Then he pulled a letter from his pocket and read it with a doubtful sigh. This was the letter:

"Luther Lodge,
"Hornham, N.

"Dear Sir:

"Your letter duly to hand. I note that you are desirous of having a private conversation with me, and shall be pleased to grant facilities for same. I shall not be leaving for the Strand till mid-day, and can therefore see you at eleven.

"Faithfully yours,
"Samuel Hamlyn.
"Secretary of the Luther League,
"Chairman of The New Reformation Association."

The clergyman read and reread the letter, hardly knowing what to make of it. He had done so many times. The infinite condescension of it annoyed him; the recapitulation of the writer's position seemed a piece of impudent bravado, and reminded the vicar of St. Luke's of the unhappy state that religious life was in at Hornham.

Some days before, shocked and distressed beyond measure at the growing turmoil in Hornham, startled by the continued evidences of it that he met with in his pastoral life, he had written to Mr. Hamlyn asking for a private interview. He had shrunk from doing anything of the sort for weeks. His whole nature revolted against it. But he had dimly recognised that in some measure he might be said to be in a middle position between the two conflicting parties, and thought that his mediation might be of some avail. Repugnant as it was to him, he resolved that he must do what he thought to be his duty, and after he had made it the subject of anxious and fervent prayer he had made up his mind to see if he could not prevail with the leader of the "New Reformation" to cease his agitation, in Hornham at any rate. He imagined that Hamlyn could hardly realise the harm he was doing to the true religious life in the place. It was not his business to argue with the reformer about his work elsewhere. He knew nothing of that. But in Hornham, at any rate, he did see that the civil war provoked nothing but the evil passions of hatred and malice, had no effect upon either party, and prevented the steady preparation for heaven which he thought was the supreme business of Christians.

Hamlyn's letter certainly didn't seem at all conciliatory. It disturbed him. He had hardly ever spoken to the man in the past, but he had known of him, as he necessarily knew of every tradesman in the borough. Social considerations hardly ever entered his mind, but he had not thought of Hamlyn as a potentate in any way when he had written to him. He knew him for a plump, shrewd, vulgar man, who dropped his aspirates and said "paiper" for "paper," and, indeed, had thought none the worse of him for that. But the letter surprised him. It was almost offensive, and he was as near anger as a gentle-minded man may be.

At half-past ten o'clock, he sighed, realising that a most distasteful duty had to be done, and prepared to leave the house. Before he left his study, he knelt down and prayed for a blessing in his mission. He always prayed before any event of any importance in life. An enormous number of people still do, and it is a very great pity that some people do not believe or realise the fact. Prayer is not the anachronism many publicists would have us believe. If among all classes, Christians by open profession, and people who make no profession at all, save only contempt for Christianity, a census of prayers prayed during one day could be taken, the result would be very remarkable indeed. It would certainly startle the rationalists. Statistics show that every second a child is born and a person dies. It is during the approach of such occasions that even people who call themselves "atheists" generally pray. Ask hospital nurses, doctors, or parish priests! There is no greater humbug than the pretence that prayer as a general necessity and practice is dead. There is more irreligion visible to-day than at any other time in English history, perhaps. But that does not mean that people do not pray. The majority live a jolly, godless life till they are frightened. Then they pray. The minority pray always.

Mr. Carr left his house with a more vigorous step after his petition. As so many folk know, the help that comes from prayer is only self-hypnotism—of course. But it is certainly odd what power some of the least gifted and most ordinary people have of this self-hypnotism. One had always thought it rather a cryptic science, the literature of India, for example, regarding it as a supreme achievement. But it must be very simple after all! And if the help that comes to the human heart after prayer is a result of this magnetic power, all we can say is that in the depths of a Whitechapel slum, the outcast, forgotten, and oppressed have each and all the most remarkable, delicate, and cultured temperaments, not in the least seared or spoilt by privation and want. The only point that one quite fails to understand is, why are the leading reviews and scientific publications still discussing this art, or talent, as something rare, abnormal, and as yet little understood?

Mr. Carr drew near to "Luther Lodge." "Balmoral" had been deserted for some time by the Hamlyn family, who very properly felt that it was beneath the dignity of its celebrated head, and would also be harmful to the glorious Protestant cause, if they remained among the undistinguished inhabitants of Beatrice Villas.

About the time that this decision had been arrived at, a substantial square house, unornamental but sound—like Protestantism itself—was vacated by its former inhabitant, the Mayor of Hornham, a leather-dresser in a large way, who had sold his business to a company and was retiring to the country. Mr. Hamlyn looked over the place—then known as Hide-side House—and saw that it would exactly suit him and his altered fortunes. He changed the name to "Luther Lodge," made some extensive purchases of furniture, and established himself there with his son and daughter.

Carr drew near to the iron gates before the circular sweep of gravel known to the past and present inhabitants of the house as the "drive." The gates were hung from two stone pilasters, each surmounted by a small but extremely rampant lion, fiercely Protestant of aspect and painted a dull purple. The whole aspect of the place was chilling, as the clergyman walked up to the door. The formal lace curtains in the windows, the brilliant black-leaded boot-scraper which reflected the sunlight in a dozen facets of vicious leaden fire, the great apple of shining brass which was the bell-pull—all these affected him in an unpleasant manner. He was supremely unconscious of any artistic likings or knowledge, but the seeds of them were latent in him nevertheless, and the place hurt his senses in a strange way.

A trim maid came to the door, the extreme antithesis of the filibustering "general" of a year ago, and showed him into the hall.

"I'll see if master's disengaged," she said; "are you the gentleman as has an appointment with master for eleven?"

Mr. Carr confessed to being that gentleman and the girl left him standing there. From some room in the upper part of the house, so it seemed, the tinkling notes of a piano came down to him. Some one—it was Miss Hamlyn herself—was singing fervently of "violets, violets, I will wear for thee."

After a considerable interval, the maid came back. "Master will see you now, sir," she said, and ushered the visitor into Mr. Hamlyn's study.

It was a fair-sized room with a long French window opening upon a lawn in the centre of a small, walled garden. Many book-shelves filled with grave and portly tomes lined the walls, a large writing-table stood in the middle of the carpet. Some months before, a struggling firm of "religious publishers" had failed, and their stock of theology was thrown upon a flooded market as "Remainders." Mr. Hamlyn, as being in the trade himself, was enabled to acquire a library suited to his position at remarkably cheap rates.

Mr. Hamlyn rose from his chair.

"Glad to see you," he said hastily, and with great condescension and good humour. "Fortunate I happened to have a morning free. Now, what can I do for you? No spiritual trouble, I hope? Ritualists been prowling round St. Luke's? If so, say the word, give me the facts, and I'll see you are protected!"

"It is on a question connected with the state of affairs in the district that I called to see you, Mr. Hamlyn."

"Quite so, Mr. Carr, just what I expected. Well, I've always heard good accounts of you as a loyal Protestant minister—though I can't approve of your using that pestilential book, Hymns Ancient and Modern, in your church—and I will do what I can for you. Providence has placed a scourge in my hand to drive the idolaters from the Temple, so tell me your trouble."

Carr had listened to this, which was delivered in a loud, confident voice, with growing amazement. He hardly knew how to take the man.

"I deplore very much," he said, making a great effort, "the state into which Hornham has been thrown. I cannot, of course, approve of much that I understand takes place at St. Elwyn's. Yet I am beginning to fear that the remedy is worse than the disease. I am sure, Mr. Hamlyn, that your great desire must be to see the people led to love the Lord Jesus and to live godly, sober lives. Well, I find that the crusade of the Luther League is unsettling the minds of weaker brethren. They are becoming excited, forgetful of duty, carried away by the flood of a popular movement. All this is hurtful to souls. Men should have peace to make themselves right with God. Strife and anger hurt the soul and wound it. Now I have no concern with any other place but this, in which my ministry is set. But in Hornham, at least, I have come to ask you to moderate your attacks upon the High Church party, to extend to them the same tolerance they extend to us."

Hamlyn stared at the speaker.

"To moderate MY methods?" he shouted in a coarse voice. "Do you know what you're asking? Do you realise who I am?"

"Perfectly, Mr. Hamlyn," the clergyman answered with considerable dignity. "I am speaking, I hope, to a brother Christian, and as such, in the name of our dear Lord, I ask you to cease this strife and discord among us. God will show his desires in his own way; prayer is a more powerful weapon than public invective. And it is idle to deny that the vicar of St. Elwyn's and his curates are doing good. I believe their teaching on fundamental truths is wrong, I deprecate the ceremonial with which they veil and cover the simple beauties of the Christian faith. But Mr. Blantyre is a good and noble-hearted man. He gives his life and his large income—it is a matter of common knowledge—to the service of the poor and needy. He is utterly unselfish, he loves Jesus. Let him work in his own way in peace."

Mr. Hamlyn's face grew very red. The man was mentally bloated by prosperity and success. Daily he was hailed by fools as the saviour of his country, his name was on many lips, and his sense of proportion was utterly gone.

"Really!" he said, "of all the mad requests as was ever made me this is the maddest! Are you in your senses, Mr. Carr—you a Protestant minister of the Word? You can't be. You come to me, me, who Providence has set at the head of Henglish Protestantism, and ask me to join a base conspiracy to silence the clarion of Truth! to leave my 'igh ground of Principle and grovel before a petticoated 'priest'! Why, you're asking me to let the Pope and the devil into Hornham. Have you ever cast your eye upon the works of the immortal John Bunyan? What about Mr. Facing-both-ways?"

Mr. Carr kept his temper. He was there upon an important issue. What did it matter if the man was rude? "But don't you think, as a Christian," he said mildly, "that it is hard enough to fight the devil, the world, and the flesh without private differences in the Christian camp?"

"Who's speaking of Christians?" Hamlyn cried; "not I. Blantyre is no Christian; he is doing the devil's work, which is the work of Rome. He gives away his money because the devil showed him that it was a good move, to win souls to Rome. As for his goodness, how do we know what goes on in the confessional? I've heard——"

Carr stood up. "Let me tell you at once, sir," he said in a hard voice and with flashing eyes, "that any scandal and slander you make before me about a man I know to be pure and good I will at once repeat to him, and you will have to take the consequences."

"Ah!" said the agitator sharply and suddenly and with his impudent smile flashing over his face, mingled with a sneer, "I see now! I ought to have seen it before. You are a wolf in sheep's clothing! While we all thought you a faithful Protestant, you have secretly joined causes with the enemy. The cloven 'oof 'as peeped out! You come as a sneaking ambassador of Rome in the garb of a Protestant. The Jesuits have been having a go at you, Mr. Carr, and they've got you! I shouldn't wonder if you've got your 'air-shirt on now! Go back to them as sent you and say that I've scourged 'em with whips in the past and I'll give 'em scorpions now. This will make a fine story at our next meeting in the public 'all!"

Carr turned on his heel without a word and left the room. He crossed the hall in a couple of strides, opened the door, and walked quickly over the gravel sweep. As his hand was on the latch of the gate, the reformer's voice hailed him. Mr. Hamlyn was looking round the corner of the door; a genial grin—a clown's grin—lay upon his face. "Mr. Carr!" he bawled with unabashed and merry impudence, "been to Mass yet?"

Then, with a final chuckle, he closed the door.

The peacemaker walked sadly away. He saw at once the sort of man he had been dealing with, and recognised how futile any protest would be in the case. He saw clearly how unassailable Hamlyn's position was, while the country was full of people who would pay him to keep them in a state of pleasurable excitement. It was better than the theatre to which Hamlyn's subscribers loudly protested that their consciences would not allow them to go! It was a sort of bull-baiting revived; the lust of the public at seeing some one hunted was satisfied.

How infinitely better the sober methods of the old-established Protestant societies were! Legitimate propaganda, a dignified and scholarly controversy, these were right and sane. But this clown's business, this noise and venom, was utterly disgusting. He had caught a glimpse into the machinery of the whole movement that sickened him.

He went home to his lonely house and made a frugal lunch. Something ought to be done, but what? He was not a man to fail in any efforts he made in a good cause. He did not propose to cease his attempts to restore Hornham to decent calm, even now. But he could not see, at the moment, what was the next move he should make.

During the afternoon he set out on a round of parochial visiting. He sat by the bedsides of the sick, the querulous, the ungrateful, and told his message of comfort. He heard much of Hamlyn's campaign. The new leaflet with its violent language was thrust into his hand. Every one wondered what would happen next. Would Mr. Blantyre face the Luther Lecturers in the public hall? One old bedridden dame Carr found all agog with excitement and spite. "It'd come to a fight," she expected, and "wot an awful thing it was to have them wicked monsters the Papists so close. She could 'ardly sleep o' nights thinking of it all." Carr found that the poor old creature had not the remotest idea of what "Papist" meant, of what anything meant, indeed; but she would hardly listen to his prayers and Bible-reading nevertheless, so eager was she to discuss the "goings on."

About four, as he left the last house he purposed to visit just then, a strange thought came to him suddenly. He was at the extreme end of his parish, not far from St. Elwyn's. Would it not be a good thing to go and visit Blantyre, to express his sympathy and to discuss whether some way out of the present trouble could not be found?

The idea strengthened and grew. He knew Blantyre was a decent fellow—every one said so. But, nevertheless, he had the sense of venturing into the lion's den! He should feel strange among these priests with their foreign ways, their cassocks and berrettas; there would be discomfort in the visit.

It is curious how, in the minds of the least prejudiced, the dislike to the definite and outward symbols that a priest wears still lingers. In another generation, it will have been swept away, but it still survives as a relic of the dark, secularising influences of the eighteenth century. And, again, the man in the street does not like to be reminded that there is a God and a class of men vowed to His service, and the complete distinction of a priest's costume is too explicit a reminder.

Carr thought the matter out for a minute or two and then made up his mind. He would go and talk over the situation with Blantyre. With a vivid sense of how his host of the morning would call his action "bowing down in the house of Rimmon," a sense that only quickened his steps and sent a contemptuous curl to his lip, he turned and walked towards the clergy-house.

He rang the bell, and a tall and rather hulking man in livery showed him into a large drawing-room. This was the navvy, Mr. King's former assailant, who had been promoted, at his own request, to a distinctive costume, which he wore with pride and diligence. His only grief was that he was not allowed to "wipe the floor with that there Hamlyn," but he lived in hope that some fresh outrage would provide him with the necessary permission.

Carr looked round the room. There was nothing ecclesiastical about it, no flavour of the monk at home. It had been newly papered; the walls were covered with pictures so fresh and new in treatment that they might have come from the Academy of that year. The vicar of St. Luke's suddenly awoke to the fact that he was in a very charming room indeed. There was a Steinway grand piano there, a beautiful instrument; he saw that the Twelfth Nocturne of Chopin stood open upon it. Everywhere he saw a multitude of photographs in frames of silver, copper, ivory, peacock leather—every imaginable sort of frame. A great many of these photographs were signed in the corner, and looking at some of them he was surprised to see that they were of very well-known people. Here was a well-known general, there a judge, again the conscious features of a society actor beamed out at him. His eye, unobservant at first, began to take in the details of the room more rapidly. There were a hundred luxurious little trifles scattered about, numerous contrivances for comfort. He was wondering to whom this room could belong, when the door opened and his doubts were resolved.

A girl came in, a girl with a beautifully modelled face, healthy and yet without crimson in it. A pair of frank, dark eyes looked at him from beneath an overshadowing mass of dead black hair.

"How do you do, Mr. Carr," she said,—he had given the man his card,—"I am Mr. Blantyre's sister; I've only just pitched my tent in Hornham. Bernard will be in for tea in half an hour."

Rather nervously, Carr explained that he had called on a matter of parochial business. He remained standing, a little at a loss. This girl was not like the young ladies of Hornham.

"Well, you must have some tea," Lucy said with decision as she rang the bell. Carr sat down. He anticipated a somewhat trying half hour until the vicar should arrive. He was a gentleman, well bred in every way, but his life, from the time of his school days, had been lonely and without much feminine companionship.

In five minutes he found, to his own great surprise, that he was talking vividly and well, that he was quite pleased to be where he was. And the girl seemed to be interested and pleased with him. It was a very new sensation, this feeling of mutual liking, to the lonely man. The conversation turned naturally to the unrest around them. Carr said nothing as yet of his morning's experience.

"Well, I must confess, frankly, Mr. Carr," Lucy said, "that until lately I never took any interest at all in these things. They seemed humbug to me. Now, of course, I know better. It's a shame! a black shame, that Bernard and the others should be treated so by this disgusting man. If he only knew what their life was! how self-denying, how full of unceasing labour and worry, how devoted. Take Mr. Stephens, for instance: he's only a boy, yet he's killing himself with work and enthusiasm. He was up all last night with a man that has delirium tremens, yet he said Mass at half-past seven, came to breakfast as merry as a sand-boy, and was teaching in the national schools at nine. And he'll be on his feet to-day until nearly midnight without a word of complaint. He'll spend nearly the whole evening in the boys' club, boxing and playing billiards with them—oh, you can't think how the three of them work!"

She went on with a series of anecdotes and explanations, told with great vividness and power, in her new enthusiasm for the men among whom she had come. And throughout all her talk, the clergyman heard frequent references to the services that went on almost unceasingly in the great church hard by. He heard names, strange and yet familiar, startling to his ear, and yet which seemed quite natural and fitting in the place where he was. One thing he began to see clearly, and with interest: whatever these men were in opinion, a life of real and active holiness went on among them. And he noticed also, with wonder, how everything seemed to draw its inspiration from the church, how constantly the clergy were there, hearing confessions, saying services, praying, and preaching. The whole thing was new to him.

They were the best of friends, talking brightly together, when the door burst open and the impetuous priest rushed in. "Well, I'm glad to see you!" he said with a broad grin of welcome. "Had tea?—that's right. I see you've made friends with my clergywoman! I've been in church hearing confessions, or I'd have been in sooner."

His manner was extremely genial. He seemed genuinely glad to see his brother vicar and not in the least surprised or puzzled.

Carr looked attentively at him. So this merry Irishman, with the lined, powerful face, the grey hair, and eyes which sometimes blazed out like lamps—this was the great Ritualist, the Jesuit, the thief of English liberty!

He had a wonderful magnetic power, that was evident at once. His sympathy for everything and everybody poured from him; he was "big," big in every way.

He chatted merrily away on a variety of topics while taking his tea. Asking his sister for another cup, he suddenly turned to Carr. "That reminds me," he said, "of a good story I heard yesterday. Father Cartwright was here to lunch, he is one of the St. Clement Fathers at the Oxford monastery. Not long ago a young nobleman—rather a bon vivant, by the way—went down to spend a few days with the Fathers. He made his arrival, very unfortunately for him, poor fellow! on a Friday, when the fare's very frugal indeed. He had very little to eat, poor chap, and went to bed as hungry as a hunter, quite unable to sleep he was. Now, it's the custom for one of the Fathers to go round in the night with a benediction, 'The Lord be with you.' They always say it in Latin, Dominus tecum. The young man heard some one rapping at the door. 'Who's there?' says he. 'Dominus tecum,' was the answer. 'Thanks, very much,' said the nobleman, 'please put it down outside'!"

While they were laughing at the story, Lucy rose and, shaking hands with Carr, went away.

The two clergymen were left alone. "You'll not mind talking in here?" Father Blantyre said. "I've got a poor chap in me study I don't want to disturb. I found um after lunch making a row in the street with a crowd round him, a poor half-clothed scarecrow, beastly drunk—never saw a man in such a state. I asked one of the crowd who he was and he said he was a stranger, a ship's fireman, who'd been about the place for a day or two, spending all his money in drinks, and he hadn't a friend in the world. A policeman came along and wanted to lock um up, but I managed to get him in here and he's sleeping it off. I shall give um egg in milk when he comes round: his poor stomach's half poisoned with bad liquor and no food. I always find egg and milk the best thing in these cases. I wish he wasn't so dirty! We shall have to give 'm a hot tub before he can go to bed."

"What will you do with him?"

"Oh, keep him here for a day or two to pull round, give um some clothes, and pack 'm off to sea again where he can't get any drink."

"Don't such men ever rob you?"

"Hardly ever. It's not your real outcast who steals much. They're generally so astonished to find a parson isn't as black as he's painted that they don't think of anything else. They go away feeling they've got a pal, made a friend! That's the awful want in their lives. A lot of them come back, and write to me while they're away, too, queer letters full of gratitude and bad language! But ye came to see me, my friend. I'm so glad you've found your way here. Now, what can I do for you, or are ye going to do anything for me?"

His manner had changed. His tone was indescribably sympathetic and gentle. If ever the wisdom of charity and the light of holiness shone out on a man's face, Carr thought that he saw it now.

He was entirely dominated by the man. In a burst of nervous words, he poured out his thoughts. He told of his futile visit to Hamlyn, his keen distress at the result, the misery the agitation gave him, and the harm he believed it to be doing.

Blantyre listened with few words. Now and then he made a warm and penetrating remark.

"It will pass," he said at length; "God will give us peace again. He is trying the faith of the poor and ignorant among us. Our prayers will avail. But we will concert together that we may take such measures to stop the local evil as we properly can. I have been loath to move in the matter, but now that you have come to me we will join forces and take action. There are ways and means. I hate pulling wires and using influence, but one must sometimes. I had hoped it wouldn't be necessary. But something must be done. Lord Huddersfield will take action for us. The street meetings can be stopped at once. Then we can inaugurate a real press campaign and let the leader-writers loose. Hitherto it's been our policy to say nothing much, except in the religious papers, of course. But the time has come when we must fight, too. I was talking to Sir Michael Manicho about it the other day. A word or two from him and the country will be ringing with warnings. We can rob this Luther League of its powers in a week. It will go on, of course, but with its fangs drawn. The people who support it will, many of them, cease their subscriptions. And there is the law also. The magistrates of London are quite ready to take a strong stand. That is settled. And a word from the Archbishop, perhaps, would be a help. Public opinion is very easily turned."

He spoke calmly, but with conviction and a quiet sense of power. Carr began to see dimly what great forces were behind this man and others of his kind. The tremendous organising machinery of the Catholic Church was laid bare for a moment.

A most confidential talk followed. Blantyre gave the other details and names. He made it plain to Carr's astonished ears that those in high places were waiting to act, waiting to see if the Church needed them. The depth and force of it all astonished him.

A bell began to ring. "There's evensong," said Blantyre, "I must be off. It's my turn to say it to-night."

"I will come, too," Carr answered.

"Do, do! and take some food with us all afterwards, and we'll have a longer talk. You can't think how happy I am that we have come together. What? You've never seen our church? Why, then, you've a treat in front of ye! Every one says it's beautiful. We all love it, we're all proud of it!"

He took him by the arm and led him away.

Not a word of the differences that separated them, no suspicion, or distrust, nothing but welcome and brotherhood!

The tall, bearded man and the quick, shaven Celt in his cassock went into the church together to pray—

"Give peace in our time, O Lord."