of religion. This last class was
discouraged as much as possible, for one of the first rules of the
Mission House was to show no favour to any man who claimed to be
religious, it being Father Rowley's chief dread to make anybody's
religion a paying concern. Sometimes a jailbird just released from
prison would find in the Mission House an opportunity to recover his
self-respect. But whoever the guest was, soldier, sailor, tinker,
tailor, apothecary, ploughboy, or thief, he was judged at the Mission
House as a man. Some of the visitors repaid their host by theft or
fraud; but when they did, nobody uttered proverbs or platitudes about
mistaken kindness. If one lame dog bit the hand that was helping him
over the stile, the next dog that came limping along was helped over
just as freely.

"What right has one miserable mortal to be disillusioned by another
miserable mortal?" Father Rowley demanded. "Our dear Lord when he was
nailed to the cross said 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do.' He did not say, 'I am fed up with these people I have come
down from Heaven to save. I've had enough of it. Send an angel with a
pair of pincers to pull out these nails.'"

If the Missioner's patience ever failed, it was when he had to deal with
High Church young men who made pilgrimages to St. Agnes' because they
had heard that this or that service was conducted there with a finer
relish of Romanism than anywhere else at the moment in England. On one
occasion a pietistic young creature, who brought with him his own lace
cotta but forgot to bring his nightshirt, begged to be allowed the joy
of serving Father Rowley at early Mass next morning. When they came back
and were sitting round the breakfast table, this young man simpered in a
ladylike voice:

"Oh, Father, couldn't you keep your fingers closed when you give the
_Dominus vobiscum_?"

"Et cum spiritu tuo," shouted Father Rowley. "I can keep my fingers
closed when I box your ears."

And he proved it.

It was a real box on the ears, so hard a blow that the ladylike young
man burst into tears to the great indignation of a Chief Petty Officer
staying in the Mission House, who declared that he was half in a mind to
catch the young swab such a snitch on the conk as really would give him
something to blubber about. Father Rowley evidently had no remorse for
his violence, and the young man went away that afternoon saying how
sorry he was that the legend of the good work