To be able to say this, and feel that one is daring convention by
one's breadth of mind, is no uncommon standard of Christian
intelligence.

But all this dutiful attention to Lady Bray availed the Rev. Samuel
nothing. On the anvil of circumstances he was broken, as in the smithy
the red-hot metal is bent and severed as though it were but clay.

After ten years' faithful, if somewhat incompetent service, in the
parish of Cailsham, the Rev. Samuel Bishop was requested to accept
the chaplaincy at some distant Union. It was in this manner that his
downfall came about.




CHAPTER IV


It was Easter Sunday. The vicar of the little parish of Steynton,
just outside Maidstone, was away for his holidays, and the Rev.
Samuel Bishop had taken his place as _locum tenens_.

In the small church where the parishioners met every Sunday, it had
been the custom for some time past for an earnest and well-known
member of the congregation, who had an appreciation for the sound
of his own voice, to read the lessons at Matins and at Evensong. This
duty, combined with that of warden, was fulfilled by Mr. Windle, an
ardent church-goer, a staunch, if somewhat narrow-visioned