is companion,
said:

"It's rather late in the day for a fellow to wake up, ain't it,
Wingfold? You see I was brought up to hate fanaticism, and that may have
blinded me to something you have seen and got a hold of. I wish I could
just see what it is, but I never was much of a theologian. Indeed I
suspect I am rather stupid in some things. But I would fain try to look
my duty in the face. It's not for me to start up and teach the people,
because I ought to have been doing it all this time: I've got nothing to
teach them. God only knows whether I haven't been breaking every one of
the commandments I used to read to them every Sunday."

"But God does know, sir," said the curate, with even more than his usual
respect in his tone, "and that is well, for otherwise we might go on
breaking them forever."

The rector gave him a sudden look, full in the face, but said nothing,
seemed to fall a thinking, and for some time was silent.

"There's one thing clear," he resumed: "I've been taking pay, and doing
no work. I used to think I was at least doing no harm--that I was merely
using one of the privileges of my position: I not only paid a curate,
but all the repair the church ever got was from me. Now, however, for
the first time, I reflect that the money was not given me for that.
Doubtless it has been all the better for my congregation, but that is
only an instance of the good God brings out of evil, and the evil is
mine still. Then, again, there's all this property my wife brought me:
what have I done with that? The kingdom of heaven has not come a
hair's-breadth nearer for my being a parson of the Church of England;
neither are the people of England a shade the better that I am one of
her land-owners. It is surely time I did something, Wingfold, my boy!"

"I think it is, sir," answered the curate.

"Then, in God's name, what am I to do?" returned the rector, almost
testily.

"Nobody can answer that question but yourself, sir," replied Wingfold.

"It's no use my trying to preach. I could not write a sermon if I took a
month to it. If it were a paper on the management of a stable, now, I
think I could write that--respectably. I know what I am about there. I
could even write one on some of the diseases of horses and bullocks--but
that's not what the church pays me for. There's one thing though--it
comes over me strong that I should like to read prayers in the old place
again. I want to pray, and I don't know how; and it s