his hooded phaeton so swiftly through the lanes were the
admiration of the county. His features were already beginning to
assume their ascetic cast, but the spirit of youth had not yet
fled from them, so that he seemed to combine the attractions of
dignity and grace. He was a good talker, a sympathetic listener,
a man who understood the difficult art of preserving all the
vigour of a manly character and yet never giving offence. No
wonder that his sermons drew crowds, no wonder that his spiritual
advice was sought for eagerly by an ever-growing group of
penitents; no wonder that men would say, when his name was
mentioned, 'Oh, Manning! No power on earth can keep HIM from a
bishopric!'

Such was the fair outward seeming of the Archdeacon's life; but,
the inward reality was different. The more active, the more
fortunate, the more full of happy promise his existence became,
the more persistently was his secret imagination haunted by a
dreadful vision--the lake that burneth forever with brimstone and
fire. The temptations of the Evil One are many, Manning knew; and
he knew also that, for him at least, the most subtle and terrible
of all temptations was the temptation of worldly success. He
tried to reassure himself, but it was in vain. He committed his
thoughts to a diary, weighing scrupulously his every motive,
examining with relentless searchings into the depths of his
heart. Perhaps, after all, his longings for preferment were
merely legitimatehopes for 'an elevation into a sphere of higher
usefulness'. But no. there was something more than that. 'I do
feel pleasure,' he noted, 'in honour, precedence, elevation, the
society of great people, and all this is very shameful and mean.'