, what man can see what his duties are? For my part,
I cannot find that it is my duty to maintain the present order of
things. In nothing in our religion, our government, our manners, do I
find faith. And if there is no faith, how can there be any duty? We have
ceased to be a nation. We are a mere crowd, kept from utter anarchy by
the remains of an old system which we are daily destroying."

"But what would you do, my dear boy?" said the duke, pale with anxiety.
"Have you found any remedy?"

"No," said Tancred mournfully. "There is no remedy to be found in
England. Oh, let me save myself, father! Let me save our people from the
corruption and ruin that threaten us!"

"But what do you want to do? Where do you want to go?" said the duke.

"I want to go to God!" cried the young nobleman, his blue eyes flaming
with a strange light "How is it that the Almighty Power does not send
down His angels to enlighten us in our perplexities? Where is the
Paraclete, the Comforter Who was promised us? I must go and seek him."

"You are a visionary, my boy," said the duke, gazing at him in blank
astonishment.

"Was the Montacute that fought by the side of King Richard in the Holy
Land a visionary?" said Tancred. "All I ask is to be allowed to follow
in his footsteps. For three days and three nights he knelt in prayer at
the tomb of his Redeemer. Six centuries and more have gone by since
then. It is high time that we renewed our intercourse with the Most High
in the country of His chosen people. I, too, would kneel at that tomb.
I, too, surrounded by the holy hills and groves of Jerusalem, would lift
my voice to Heaven, and ask for inspiration."

"But surely God will hear your prayers in England as well as in
Palestine?"

"No," said his son. "He has never raised up a prophet or a great saint
in this country. If we want Him to speak to us as He spoke to the men of
old, we must go, like the Crusaders, to the Holy Land."

Finding that he could not turn his son from the strange course on which
he was bent, the duke got a great prelate to try and persuade him that
all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

"We live in an age of progress," reasoned the philosophic bishop.
"Religion is spreading with the spread of civilisation. How all our
towns are growing! We shall soon see a bishop in Manchester."

"I want to see an angel in Manchester," replied Tancred.

It was no use arguing with a man who talked in this way, and