shake hands with him to be made an archbishop. I wouldn't touch
him with a pair of tongs."

"Even less charitable than St. Dunstan to the devil," said Charles
Osmond, smiling a little, but sadly. "Except in that old legend,
however, I don't think Christianity ever mentions tongs. If you can't
love your enemies, and pray for them, and hold out a brotherly hand to
them, perhaps it were indeed better to hold aloof and keep as quiet as
you can."

"It is clearly impossible for us to work together any longer, Osmond,"
said Mr. Roberts, rising. "I am sorry that such a cause should separate
us, but if you will persist in visiting an outcast of society, a
professed atheist, the most bitter enemy of our church, I cannot allow
my name to be associated with yours it is impossible that I should hold
office under you."

So the two friends parted.

Charles Osmond was human, and almost inevitably a sort of reaction
began in his mind the instant he was alone. He had lost one of his best
friends, he knew as well as possible that they could never be on
the same footing as before. He had, moreover, lost in him a valuable
co-worker. Then, too, it was true enough that his defense of Raeburn was
bringing him into great disfavor with the religious world, and he was a
sensitive and naturally a proud man, who found blame, and reproach,
and contemptuous disapproval very hard to bear. Years of hard fighting,
years of patient imitation of Christ had wonderfully ennobled him, but
he had not yet attained to the sublime humility which, being free from
all thought of self, cares nothing, scarcely even pauses to think of
the world's judgment, too absorbed in the work of the Highest to have
leisure for thought of the lowest, too full of love for the race to have
love to spare for self. To this ideal he was struggling, but he had not
yet reached it, and the thought of his own reputation, his own feelings
would creep in. He was not a selfishly ambitious man, but every one who
is conscious of ability, every one who feels within him energies lying
fallow for want of opportunity, must be ambitious for a larger sphere of
work. Just as he was beginning to dare to allow himself the hope of some
change in his work, some wider field, just as he was growing sure enough
of himself to dare to accept any greater work which might have been
offered to him, he must, by bringing himself into evil repute, lose
every chance of preferment. And for what? For attempting to