parson, but he was a parson because the church of
England gave him facilities for spending his life for
the people. He gave himself altogether to the
Lord, and therefore to his people. He believed
in Jesus Christ as the everyday life of the world,
whose presence is just us needful in bank, or shop,
or house of lords, as at what so many of the clergy
call the altar. When the Lord is known as the
heart of every joy, as well as the refuge from every
sorrow, then the altar will be known for what it is—an
ecclesiastical antique. The Father permitted
but never ordained sacrifice; in tenderness to his
children he ordered the ways of their unbelieving
belief. So at least thought and said Wingfold,
and if he did not say so in the pulpit, it was not
lest his fellows should regard him as a traitor, but
because so few of his people would understand.
He would spend no strength in trying to shore up the
church; he sent his life-blood through its veins, and
his appeal to the Living One, for whose judgment he
waited.
The world would not perish if what is called the church
did go to pieces; a truer church, for there might
well be a truer, would arise out of her ruins.
But let no one seek to destroy; let him that builds
only take heed that he build with gold and silver
and precious stones, not with wood and hay and stubble!
If the church were so built, who could harm it! if
it were not in part so built, it would be as little
worth pulling down as letting stand. There is
in it a far deeper and better vitality than its blatant
supporters will be able to ruin by their advocacy,
or the enviers of its valueless social position by
their assaults upon that position.
Wingfold never thought of associating the anxiety
of the heiress with the unbelief of the bookbinder.
He laughed a laugh of delight when afterward he learned
their relation to each other.
The next Sunday, Barbara was at church, and never
afterward willingly missed going. She sought
the friendship of Mrs. Wingfold, and found at last
a woman to whom she could heartily look up. She
found in her also a clergyman’s wife who understood
her husband—not because he was small-minded,
but because she was large-hearted—and fell
in thoroughly with his modes of teaching his people,
as well as his objects in regard to them. She
never sought to make one in the parish a churchman,
but tried to make every one she had to do with a scholar
of Christ, a child to his father in heaven.
THE SHOEING OF MISS BROWN.
Two days after, on a lovely autumn evening, Barbara
rode Miss Brown across the fields, avoiding the hard
road even more carefully than usual. For Miss
Brown, as I have said, was in want of shoes, and Barbara
herself was to have a hand in putting them on.
