ding these poor creatures from their abuse? They ought to
see the difference." Then a voice, deeper in the heart, whispered--
"They ought; but they do not, and their souls are perishing. They are
your people: you must deal with them as they are, not as they ought to
be."

That night the rector's sleep was very troubled.

It was about a week later that he was again near the "Oldfield Arms,"
when a spruce-looking man--his wine-merchant's agent--came out of the
inn door, and walked up the street. Two men were standing with their
backs to the rector just outside the yard. He was about to pass on;
when he heard one say,--

"What a sight of wine some of them parsons drink! Yon fine gent
couldn't afford all them gold chains and pins if it warn't for the
parsons."

"Ay," said the other, "it's the parsons as knows good wine from bad. I
heerd yon chap say only this morning: `Our very best customers is the
clergy.'"

"Well," rejoined the other, "I shouldn't mind if they'd only leave us
poor fellows alone, and let us get drunk when we've a mind. But it do
seem a little hard that _they_ may get drunk on their wine, but we
mustn't get drunk on our beer."

"Oh, but you know, Bill," said the other, "this here's the difference.
When they get drunk, it's genteel drunk, and there's no sin in that; but
when we poor fellows get drunk, it's wulgar drunk, and that's awful
wicked."

Bernard Oliphant was deeply pained; he shrank within himself.

"It's a cruel libel and a coarse slander," he muttered, and hastened on
his way. "Am _I_ answerable," he asked himself, "for the abuse which
others may make of what I take moderately and innocently? Absurd! And
yet it's a pity, a grievous pity, that it should be possible for such
poor ignorant creatures to speak thus of any of our holy calling, and so
to justify themselves in sin."

Yes, he felt it to be so, and it preyed upon his mind more and more. He
mentioned what he had heard to his wife.

"Dear Bernard," she replied, "I have thought a great deal lately on this
subject, especially since you told me about your speaking to those men
when you were interrupted by the drayman. I have prayed that you and I
might be directed aright; and we _shall_ be. But do not let us be
hasty. It does seem as though we were being called on to give up, for
the sake of others, what does us personally no harm. But perhaps we may
be wrong in this view. A great many excellent Christians, and min