of my own--he will value my attempt to depict him as he was. I remember his
telling me a story of Dr. Johnson, how in the course of his last illness,
when he could not open his letters, he asked Boswell to read them for him.
Boswell opened a letter from some person in the North of England, of a
complimentary kind, and thinking it would fatigue Dr. Johnson to have it
read aloud, merely observed that it was highly in his praise. Dr. Johnson
at once desired it to be read to him, and said with great earnestness,
"_The applause of a single human being is of great consequence._"
Father Payne added that it was one of Johnson's finest sayings, and had no
touch of vanity or self-satisfaction in it, but the vital stuff of
humanity. That I believe to be profoundly true: and that is the spirit in
which I have set all this down.

_September_ 30, 1915.




CONTENTS


I. FATHER PAYNE
II. AVELEY
III. THE SOCIETY
IV. THE SUMMONS
V. THE SYSTEM
VI. FATHER PAYNE
VII. THE MEN
VIII. THE METHOD
IX. FATHER PAYNE