fault, common to
most ministers, and that is, a disposition to live beyond your means,
and then come down upon the parish to pay your debts."

The blood came rushing to the face of the minister, which his monitor
took to be the plainest kind of evidence that he had hit the nail fully
upon the head. He went on more confidently.

"Now, this, Mr. Malcolm, I consider to be very wrong--very wrong,
indeed!--and especially so in a young minister in his first year, and
in his first parish. If such things are in the green tree, what are we
to expect in the dry? You accepted our call, and were plainly informed
that the salary would be four hundred dollars and rent free. Upon this
our former minister had lived quite comfortably. If you thought the
salary too little, you should not have accepted the call--accepting it,
you should have lived upon it, if you had lived on bread and water."

Mr. Larkin paused. The minister stood with his eyes cast upon the
pavement, but made no answer. Mr. Larkin resumed--

"It is such things as this that bring scandal upon the church, and
drive right thinking men out of it. It isn't that I value a few dollars
more than I do the wind; but I like to see principle; and hate all
imposition. You are a young man, Mr. Malcolm, and I speak thus plainly
to you for your good. I hope you will not feel offended."

Mr. Larkin paused, thinking, perhaps, that he had said enough. The
minister's eyes were still upon the pavement, from which he lifted them
as soon as his monitor was done speaking. The flush had left his
cheeks, that were now pale.

"I thank you for your honesty in speaking so plainly, and will try to
profit by what you have told me," said he, calmly. "The best of us are
liable to err."

There was something in the words, voice, and manner of the minister
that Mr. Larkin did not clearly comprehend. He had spoken harshly, and,
he now felt, with some rudeness; but, while there was nothing in the
air with which his reproof was received that evidenced the conviction
of error there was no resentment. A moment before, he felt like a
superior severely reprimanding an inferior; but now he stood in the
presence of one whose calmness and dignity oppressed him. He was about
commencing a confused apology for his apparent harshness, when Mr.
Malcolm bowed and passed on.

Larkin did not feel very comfortable as he walked away. He soon more
than half repented of what he had done, and before night, by way of