shment and stimulus to
him. It had, for the moment, the effect of genius and originality, and
in the first pleasure of contact, he was inclined to give to some of his
new friends a higher place intellectually than he gave them afterward.
Happily, he kept his opinions of men and things very much to himself in
these first days, and scandalised no one by declaring Peter Longley to
be a genius, or John McNider to be a hero, or by taking the part of poor
Mark Varney, as one more sinned against than sinning.

He owed his reputation for wisdom in these first months quite as much to
his silence as to his speech. His own superficial knowledge of men and
things got easily from books, seemed to him--as indeed it was--a poor
thing in comparison with the wisdom which some of these quiet,
unpretending men had almost unconsciously been gathering through the
experience of years. But it did not seem so to them. When he did
speak, he could, through the discipline of education and training, put
into clear right words the thoughts which they found it not easy to
utter, and they gave him credit for the thought as his, when often he
was only giving back to them what he had received. And he listened
well, and he chose his subjects judiciously when he did talk. It was
iron with the blacksmith, and wood with the carpenter, and seeds and
soils and the rotation of crops with the farmer, and without at all
meaning to exalt himself thereby, he would put the reading of some
leisure hour into a few well-chosen words, which seemed like treasures
of wisdom to men who had gathered their knowledge by the slow process of
hearsay and observation; and what with one thing, and what with another,
the minister grew in favour with them all.

That there had ever been a latent sense of disappointment in the minds
of any great number of the people on his first appearance among them
would have been indignantly denied. Possibly, in the varied course of
events, some in the parish might have their eyes opened to see failings
and faults in him, but in the meantime there existed in the congregation
a wonderful unanimity of feeling with regard to him.

"The cause was prospering in their midst," that was the usual formula by
which was expressed the satisfaction of the staid and elderly people
among them. It meant different things to different people: that the
church was well filled; that the weekly meetings were well attended;
that the subscription-list looked w