egan to fidget.
Mrs. Barter, sideways and unsupported on her seat, kept her starry eyes
fixed on his cheek; a line of perplexity furrowed her brow. Now and
again she moved as though her back ached. The Rector quartered his
congregation with his gaze, lest any amongst them should incline to
sleep. He spoke in a loud-sounding voice.

God-he said-wished men to be fruitful, intended them to be fruitful,
commanded them to be fruitful. God--he said--made men, and made the
earth; He made man to be fruitful in the earth; He made man neither to
question nor answer nor argue; He made him to be fruitful and possess
the land. As they had heard in that beautiful Lesson this morning,
God had set bounds, the bounds of marriage, within which man should
multiply; within those bounds it was his duty to multiply, and that
exceedingly--even as Abraham multiplied. In these days dangers,
pitfalls, snares, were rife; in these days men went about and openly,
unashamedly advocated shameful doctrines. Let them beware. It would be
his sacred duty to exclude such men from within the precincts of that
parish entrusted to his care by God. In the language of their greatest
poet, "Such men were dangerous"--dangerous to Christianity, dangerous
to their country, and to national life. They were not brought into this
world to follow sinful inclination, to obey their mortal reason. God
demanded sacrifices of men. Patriotism demanded sacrifices of men,
it demanded that they should curb their inclinations and desires. It
demanded of them their first duty as men and Christians, the duty of
being fruitful and multiplying, in order that they might till this
fruitful earth, not selfishly, not for themselves alone. It demanded of
them the duty of multiplying in order that they and their children might
be equipped to smite the enemies of their Queen and country, and uphold
the name of England in whatever quarrel, against all who rashly sought
to drag her flag in the dust.

The Squire opened his eyes and looked at his watch. Folding his arms,
he coughed, for he was thinking of the chaff-cutter. Beside him Mrs.
Pendyce, with her eyes on the altar, smiled as if in sleep. She was
thinking, 'Skyward's in Bond Street used to have lovely lace. Perhaps in
the spring I could----Or there was Goblin's, their Point de Venise----'

Behind them, four rows back, an aged cottage woman, as upright as a
girl, sat with a rapt expression on her carved old face. She never
moved, he