e had come to the moment of difficulty, of tragedy, in a career which
so far, in spite of all drawbacks of physical health and cramped
activities, had been one of singular happiness and success. Ever since
he had discovered his own gifts as a lecturer to working men, content,
cheerfulness, nay, a passionate interest in every hour, had been quite
compatible for him with all the permanent limitations of his lot. The
study of economical and historical questions; the expression through
them of such a hunger for the building of a "city of God" among men, as
few are capable of; the evidence not to be ignored even by his modesty,
and perpetually forthcoming over a long period of time, that he had the
power to be loved, the power to lead, among those toilers of the world
on whom all his thoughts centred--these things had been his joy, and had
led him easily through much self-denial to the careful husbanding of
every hour of strength and time in the service of his ideal end.

And now he had come upon opposition--the first cooling of friendships,
the first distrust of friends that he had ever known.

Early in the spring of this year a book called _To-morrow and the Land_
had appeared in London, written by a young London economist of great
ability, and dealing with the nationalisation of the land. It did not
offer much discussion of the general question, but it took up the
question as it affected England specially and London in particular. It
showed--or tried to show--in picturesque detail what might be the
consequences for English rural or municipal life of throwing all land
into a common or national stock, of expropriating the landlords, and
transferring all rent to the people, to the effacement of taxation and
the indefinite enrichment of the common lot. The book differed from
_Progress and Poverty_, which also powerfully and directly affected the
English working class, in that it suggested a financial scheme, of great
apparent simplicity and ingenuity, for the compensation of the
landlords; it was shorter, and more easily to be grasped by the average
working man; and it was written in a singularly crisp and taking style,
and--by the help of a number of telling illustrations borrowed directly
from the circumstances of the larger English towns, especially of
London--treated with abundant humour.

The thing had an enormous success--in popular phrase, "caught on." Soon
Hallin found, that all the more active and intelligent spirit