tic and
susceptible his nature, the more amenable is he to temporary influences.
It is this chameleon adaptability that passes for hypocrisy.

Cousin Joliffe was no hypocrite, he acted up to his light; and even if
the light be a badly-trimmed, greasy, evil-smelling paraffin-lamp, the
man who acts up to it is only the more to be pitied. Cousin Joliffe was
one of those amateur ecclesiastics whose talk is of things religious,
whom Church questions interest, and who seem to have missed their
vocation in not having taken Orders. If Canon Parkyn had been a High
Churchman, Cousin Joliffe would have been High Church; but the Canon
being Low-Church, Cousin Joliffe was an earnest evangelical, as he
delighted to describe himself. He was rector's churchwarden, took a
leading part in prayer-meetings, with a keen interest in school-treats,
ham teas, and magic lanterns, and was particularly proud of having been
asked more than once to assist in the Mission Room at Carisbury, where
the Vicar of Christ Church carried on revival work among the somnolent
surroundings of a great cathedral. He was without any sense of humour
or any refinement of feeling--self-important, full of the dignity of his
office, thrifty to meanness, but he acted up to his light, and was no
hypocrite.

In that petty middle-class, narrow-minded and penuriously pretentious,
which was the main factor of Cullerne life, he possessed considerable
influence and authority. Among his immediate surroundings a word from
Churchwarden Joliffe carried more weight than an outsider would have
imagined, and long usage had credited him with the delicate position of
_censor morum_ to the community. Did the wife of a parishioner venture
into such a place of temptation as the theatre at Carisbury, was she
seen being sculled by young Bulteel in his new skiff of a summer
evening, the churchwarden was charged to interview her husband, to point
out to him privately the scandal that was being caused, and to show him
how his duty lay in keeping his belongings in better order. Was a man
trying to carry fire in his bosom by dalliance at the bar of the
Blandamer Arms, then a hint was given to his spouse that she should use
such influence as would ensure evenings being spent at home. Did a
young man waste the Sabbath afternoon in walking with his dog on
Cullerne Flat, he would receive "The Tishbite's Warning, a Discourse
showing the Necessity of a Proper Observance of the Lord's Day." D