he best of it. When you
fail, it is your own failure, and you bear down with you only your
own hopes and struggles and ideals. If I fail, there falls with me
all the framework of pride and anxiety that has so long pushed me
forward and held me up. For my own failure I should not sorrow: my
concern would be for the one who has so carefully shaped me after a
pattern of her own. However else one may feel, one must be fair to
the ambitions of others, even though one is the mere material that
is heated and beaten into form on the anvil of another's will. But
I am ripe for revolt. The devil is in me,--a restrained, quiet,
well-appearing devil, but all the more terrible for that.

"I have at last supplied one of the pulpits here, that of my own
church. The Rev. Mr. Simpson was afflicted with a convenient and
adaptable indisposition which would not allow him to preach, and I
was deputed to fill his place. I knew what a trial it would be, and
had carefully written out my sermon, but I am afraid I did not
adhere very strictly to the manuscript. I think I lost my head. I
know I lost my temper. But the sermon was a nine days' wonder, and
I have had to refuse a dozen subsequent offers to supply. It is all
very sordid and sickening and theatrical. The good old Lowry tried
to show me that it was my duty and for my good, but I have set my
foot down not to supply again, and so they let me alone now.

"It seems to me that that one sermon forged a chain which holds me
in a position that I hate. It is a public declaration that I am or
mean to be a preacher, and I must either adhere to it or break
desperately away. Do you know, I feel myself to be an arrant
coward. If I had half the strength that you have, I should have
been out of it long ago; but the habit of obedience grows strong
upon a man.

"There is but one crowning act to be added to this drama of deceit
and infamy,--my ordination. I know how all the other fellows are
looking forward to it, and how, according to all the prescribed
canons, I should view the momentous day; but I am I. Have you ever
had one of those dreams where a huge octopus approaches you slowly
but certainly, enfolding you in his arms and twining his horrid
tentacles about your helpless form? What an agony of dread you
feel! You try to