s eyes fear leaped large. "Only the persecution. I harm no one. Why
will they not let me alone? But it is not that. It is the nature of
the persecution. I shouldn't mind if they cut my flesh with stripes, or
burned me at the stake, or crucified me head--downward. But it is the
asylum that frightens me. Think of it! Of me--in an asylum for the
insane! It is revolting. I saw some of the cases at the sanitarium. They
were violent. My blood chills when I think of it. And to be imprisoned
for the rest of my life amid scenes of screaming madness! No! no! Not
that! Not that!"

It was pitiful. His hands shook, his whole body quivered and shrank away
from the picture he had conjured. But the next moment he was calm.

"Forgive me," he said simply. "It is my wretched nerves. And if the
Master's work leads there, so be it. Who am I to complain?"

I felt like crying aloud as I looked at him: "Great Bishop! O hero!
God's hero!"

As the evening wore on we learned more of his doings.

"I sold my house--my houses, rather," he said, "all my other possessions.
I knew I must do it secretly, else they would have taken everything away
from me. That would have been terrible. I often marvel these days at the
immense quantity of potatoes two or three hundred thousand dollars will
buy, or bread, or meat, or coal and kindling." He turned to Ernest. "You
are right, young man. Labor is dreadfully underpaid. I never did a
bit of work in my life, except to appeal aesthetically to Pharisees--I
thought I was preaching the message--and yet I was worth half a million
dollars. I never knew what half a million dollars meant until I realized
how much potatoes and bread and butter and meat it could buy. And then
I realized something more. I realized that all those potatoes and that
bread and butter and meat were mine, and that I had not worked to make
them. Then it was clear to me, some one else had worked and made them
and been robbed of them. And when I came down amongst the poor I found
those who had been robbed and who were hungry and wretched because they
had been robbed."

We drew him back to his narrative.

"The money? I have it deposited in many different banks under different
names. It can never be taken away from me, because it can never be
found. And it is so good, that money. It buys so much food. I never knew
before what money was good for."

"I wish we could get some of it for the propaganda," Ernest said
wistfully. "It would do immens