upward with an
ostentatious contrition, as though he apologized to heaven for such a
bowing-down to Rimmon. This was the Rev. James Fullarton, British
chaplain at Dorade. A difficult and anomalous position--in which the
unlucky divine, in addition to his anxiety about the conscientious
discharge of his duties, has to cultivate the friendship of a vast
number of unrighteous Mammons, if he would be allowed to perform his
functions at all. Our countrymen are popularly supposed to take out a
special license for liberty of thought and action as soon as they cross
the Channel; and the pastor's pulpit-cushion can hardly be stuffed with
roses when every other member of his congregation--embracing devotees of
about a dozen different shades of High, Low, and Broad Church--thinks it
his or her daily duty to decide, if the formula--_Quamdiu se bene
gesserit_--has been duly complied with. Perhaps foreign air and warmer
climates develop, like a hot-bed, our innate instinct of
destructiveness. Look at portly respectable fathers of
families--householders who, at home, have accepted their spiritual
position without a murmur for a quarter of a century, roused to revolt
by no vexed question of copes, candles, or church-rates--even these can
not escape contagion. When once the game is afoot, they will open on the
scent with the perseverance of the steadiest "line-hunter," and join in
the "worry" as savagely as the youngest hound. I remember seeing a
similar case in Scotland, where a minister was preaching before "the
Men" who were appointed to judge of his qualifications. Right in front
of him, on a low bench, sat the awful Three, silent, stolid, and stern.
His best rounded periods, his neatest imagery, his aptest quotations,
brought no light into their vacant gray eyes: perhaps they were looking
beyond all these, straight at the doctrine. The breeze blew freshly
from the German Ocean, over the purple hills; but it brought no coolness
to that miserable Boanerges. How he _did_ perspire! I could not wonder
at it; and though he preached for ninety-five minutes, and wearied me
even to death, I bore him no enmity, but pitied him from my soul.

Mr. Fullarton, however, had steered through the reefs and quicksands
with better skill or luck than his fellows, and, judging from the
ruddiness of his broad, beardless face, and the amplitude of his black
waistcoat, the cares of office had not hitherto affected his health
materially. He was a well-meani