materials had not only to be preached and prayed to,--they had to be in
a measure lived with, listened to, personally studied, and individually
considered. Each was an atom to be set in vibration, and each needed to
be set or kept going in his own way. All this prose had to be made help
in the poetry. How skilful you had to be to rouse the interest you
needed and escape the many interests you did not need, to awaken the
single gift without bringing upon you all the rest, to suffer the fool
wisely,--that is, to the extent of his tiny wisdom, and no more. To
encourage say Miss Annie Smith in her district-visiting--what a talent
she has for that!--but firmly to forget her at concerts; to welcome Mr.
Jones's services at collections, but gently to discourage him at prayer
meetings; in short, to meet all at the point where their natures were
really and usefully alive, but at no other point of their
circumferences.

However, nature had made this as easy as breathing to the Reverend
Theophilus, for, apart from his humour and good nature, he was a lover
of character for its own sake, and to the student of character there is
no such person as a bore. Brother Saunderson was no doubt as wearisome
an old man as the world holds, but his manner of neighing to the Lord in
prayer was worth it all. And it is rather a pity if the reader imagines
that to laugh at his neigh is to forget respect for his venerable faith.

Thus mightily, gently, cunningly, coaxingly, Theophilus Londonderry
breathed upon New Zion, and Eli Moggridge was a noble second, according
to his word. At every service of every kind, and at all times, he was
there, swelling out from a pewful of ruddy daughters, and endlessly
beaming round at his fellow-worshippers, as much as to say, "Didn't I
say he was the man for New Zion?"