like
a heavy iron helmet crushed down over his shoulders. The cincture was
binding him very tightly. He felt that he could scarcely move for it.
The maniple rendered his left arm almost powerless. The stole was
pulling at him, and the weight of the chasuble made him very faint.

He knew some of the witnesses, but only a few. He had seen these few
before. They were his neglected spiritual children. He remembered each
and every case. One was a missed sick-call: his had been the fault.
Another was a man driven from the church by a harsh word spoken in
anger. The Vicar-General remembered the day when he referred to this
man in his sermon and saw him arise in his pew and leave. He did not
return. Another was a priest--his own assistant. The Vicar-General had
no patience with his weaknesses. From disgust at them his feelings had
turned to rancor against the man--and the assistant was lost. The
Vicar-General trembled; for these things he had passed by as either
justified by reason of the severity necessary to his office, or as
wiped out by his virtues--and he had many virtues.

The Vicar-General's eyes sought those of the Silent Angel, and he lost
some of his fear, while the weight of his vestments became a little
lighter. But the Silent Angel's gaze caused the Vicar-General again to
look at the witnesses. Those against him were increasing. The faces of
the new-comers he did not know. The Vicar-General felt like protesting
that there must be some mistake, for the new-comers were red men,
brown men, yellow men and black men, besides white men whose faces
were altogether strange. He was sure none of these had ever been in
his parish. The new-comers were dressed in the garbs of every nation
under the sun. They all alike looked very sternly at the
Vicar-General, so that he could not bear their glances. Still he could
not understand how he had ever offended against them, nor could he
surmise why they should be witnesses to his hurt.

The Silent Angel still stood beside the Vicar-General; but the
troubled soul of the priest could find no enlightenment in his eyes.
All the while witnesses kept arriving and the multitude of them filled
him with a great terror.

At last he saw a face amongst the strangers which he thought familiar,
and he began to understand. It was the face of a priest he had known,
who had been in the same diocese, somewhat under the Vicar-General's
authority. On earth this priest had been one of the quiet kind,