ching about it the Dean had called the
church so often an earnest and a pledge and a guerdon and a tabernacle,
that I think he used to forget that it wasn't paid for. It was only when
the agent of the building society and a representative of the Hosanna
Pipe and Steam Organ Co. (Limited), used to call for quarterly payments
that he was suddenly reminded of the fact. Always after these men came
round the Dean used to preach a special sermon on sin, in the course
of which he would mention that the ancient Hebrews used to put unjust
traders to death,--a thing of which he spoke with Christian serenity.

I don't think that at first anybody troubled much about the debt on the
church. Dean Drone's figures showed that it was only a matter of time
before it would be extinguished; only a little effort was needed,
a little girding up of the loins of the congregation and they could
shoulder the whole debt and trample it under their feet. Let them but
set their hands to the plough and they could soon guide it into the deep
water. Then they might furl their sails and sit every man under his own
olive tree.

Meantime, while the congregation was waiting to gird up its loins, the
interest on the debt was paid somehow, or, when it wasn't paid, was
added to the principal.

I don't know whether you have had any experience with Greater
Testimonies and with Beacons set on Hills. If you have, you will realize
how, at first gradually, and then rapidly, their position from year to
year grows more distressing. What with the building loan and the organ
instalment, and the fire insurance,--a cruel charge,--and the heat
and light, the rector began to realize as he added up the figures that
nothing but logarithms could solve them. Then the time came when not
only the rector, but all the wardens knew and the sidesmen knew that the
debt was more than the church could carry; then the choir knew and the
congregation knew and at last everybody knew; and there were special
collections at Easter and special days of giving, and special weeks of
tribulation, and special arrangements with the Hosanna Pipe and Steam
Organ Co. And it was noticed that when the Rural Dean announced a
service of Lenten Sorrow,--aimed more especially at the business
men,--the congregation had diminished by forty per cent.

I suppose things are just the same elsewhere,--I mean the peculiar kind
of discontent that crept into the Church of England congregation in
Mariposa after th