the word, attractive place—­not gaudy, you know, I never would give in to that, but ornamental too—­and in a word, attractive—­that’s it—­a place to which the people would be drawn by the look of it outside, and kep’ by the look of it inside—­a place as would make the people of Glaston say, ’Come, and let us go up to the house of the Lord,’—­if, with your help, sir, we had such a place, then perhaps you would condescend to take the reins again, sir, and we should then pay Mr. Rudd as your assistant, leaving the whole management in your hands—­to preach when you pleased, and leave it alone when you didn’t.—­There, sir!  I think that’s much the whole thing in a nut-shell.”

“And now will you tell me what result you would look for under such an arrangement?”

“We should look for the blessing of a little success; it’s a many years since we was favored with any.”

“And by success you mean——?”

“A large attendance of regular hearers in the morning—­not a seat to let!—­and the people of Glaston crowding to hear the word in the evening, and going away because they can’t get a foot inside the place!  That’s the success I should like to see.”

“What! would you have all Glaston such as yourselves!” exclaimed the pastor indignantly.  “Gentlemen, this is the crowning humiliation of my life!  Yet I am glad of it, because I deserve it, and it will help to make and keep me humble.  I see in you the wood and hay and stubble with which, alas!  I have been building all these years!  I have been preaching dissent instead of Christ, and there you are!—­dissenters indeed—­but can I—­can I call you Christians?  Assuredly do I believe the form of your church that ordained by the apostles, but woe is me for the material whereof it is built!  Were I to aid your plans with a single penny in the hope of withdrawing one inhabitant of Glaston from the preaching of Mr. Wingfold, a man who speaks the truth and fears nobody, as I, alas! have feared you, because of your dullness of heart and slowness of understanding, I should be doing the body of Christ a grievous wrong.  I have been as one beating the air in talking to you against episcopacy when I ought to have been preaching against dishonesty; eulogizing congregationalism, when I ought to have been training you in the three abiding graces, and chiefly in the greatest of them, charity.  I have taken to pieces and put together for you the plan of salvation, when I ought to have spoken only of Him who is the way and the life.  I have been losing my life, and helping you to lose yours.  But go to the abbey church, and there a man will stir you up to lay hold upon God, will teach you to know Christ, each man for himself and not for another.  Shut up your chapel, put off your scheme for a new one, go to the abbey church, and be filled with the finest of the wheat.  Then should this man depart, and one of the common episcopal train, whose God is the church, and whose neighbor is the order of the priesthood,