is heart; but he does not carry a list of
dogmas in his hand, rather keeping his own peculiar office in the
background, knowing that many of those with whom he mingles are members of
various sects. He is simply preaching the practical Christianity of
brotherhood and goodwill. It is a work that can never be finished, and
that is ever extending. His leading idea is not to check the inevitable
motion of the age, but to lone it.

He is not permitted to pursue this course unmolested; there are parties in
the village that silently oppose his every footstep. If the battle were
open it would be easier to win it, but it is concealed. The Church is not
often denounced from the housetop, but it is certainly denounced under the
roof. The poor and ignorant are instructed that the Church is their
greatest enemy, the upholder of tyranny, the instrument of their
subjection, synonymous with lowered wages and privation, more iniquitous
than the landowner. The clergyman is a Protestant Jesuit--a man of deepest
guile. The coal club, the cricket, the flower show, the allotments, the
village _fete_, everything in which he has a hand is simply an effort to
win the good will of the populace, to keep them quiet, lest they arise and
overthrow the property of the Church. The poor man has but a few shillings
a week, and the clergyman is the friend of the farmer, who reduces his
wages--the Church owns millions and millions sterling. How self-evident,
therefore, that the Church is the cottager's enemy!

See, too, how he is beautifying that church, restoring it, making it light
and pleasant to those who resort to it; see how he causes sweeter music
and singing, and puts new life into the service. This a lesson learnt from
the City of the Seven Hills--this is the mark of the Beast. But the
ultimate aim may be traced to the same base motive--the preservation of
that enormous property.

Another party is for pure secularism. This is not so numerously
represented, but has increased of recent years. From political motives
both of these silently oppose him. Nor are the poor and ignorant alone
among the ranks of his foes. There are some tenant-farmers among them, but
their attitude is not so coarsely antagonistic. They take no action
against, but they do not assist, him. So that, although, as he goes about
the parish, he is not greeted with hisses, the clergyman is full well
aware that his activity is a thorn in the side of many. They once
reproached him w