if the grocer and butcher
would continue to feed us for nothing. I wish from the bottom of my
heart that we could live without money."

"It is a bother, isn't it?" replied Philip, so gravely that his wife
laughed heartily at his tone.

"Well, the question is, what to do with the letters," resumed the
minister.

"Which of the two churches do you prefer?" asked his wife.

"I would rather go to the Chapel Hill Church as far as my preference is
concerned."

"Then why not accept their call, if that is the way you feel?"

"Because, while I should like to go to Elmdale, I feel as if I ought to
go to Milton."

"Now, Philip, I don't see why, in a choice of this kind, you don't do as
you feel inclined to do, and accept the call that pleases you most. Why
should ministers be doing what they ought instead of what they like? You
never please yourself."

"Well, Sarah," replied Philip, good-naturedly, "this is the way of it.
The church in Elmdale is in a University town. The atmosphere of the
place is scholastic. You know I passed four years of student life there.
With the exception of the schools, there are not a thousand people in
the village, a quiet, sleepy, dull, retired, studious place. I love the
memory of it. I could go there as the pastor of the Elmdale church and
preach to an audience of college boys eight months in the year and to
about eighty refined, scholarly people the rest of the time. I could
indulge my taste for reading and writing and enjoy a quiet pastorate
there to the end of my days."

"Then, Philip, I don't see why you don't reply to their call and tell
them you will accept; and we will move at once to Elmdale, and live and
die there. It is a beautiful place, and I am sure we could live very
comfortably on the salary and the vacation. There is no vacation
mentioned in the other call."

"But, on the other hand," continued the minister, almost as if he were
alone and arguing with himself, and had not heard his wife's words, "on
the other hand, there is Milton, a manufacturing town of fifty thousand
people, mostly operatives. It is the centre of much that belongs to the
stirring life of the times in which we live. The labor question is there
in the lives of those operatives. There are seven churches of different
denominations, to the best of my knowledge, all striving after
popularity and power. There is much hard, stern work to be done in
Milton, by the true Church of Christ, to apply His teachings t