peculiar conduct by refusing with an unvarying steadiness to subscribe
even a single shilling to a missionary society. How "poor Thomas" speaks
of them in the place where he is we may wonder, but as yet we cannot
know--probably with the gentle love and charity that marked his every
action upon earth. But this is by the way.

He had entered the Church, but what had he done in its shadow? This was
the question which Owen asked himself as he sat that night by the open
window, arraigning his past before the judgment-seat of conscience. For
three years he had worked hard somewhere in the slums; then this living
had fallen to him. He had taken it, and from that day forward his record
was very much of a blank. The parish was small and well ordered; there
was little to do in it, and the Salvation Army had seized upon and
reclaimed two of the three confirmed drunkards it could boast.

His guest's saying echoed in his brain like the catch of a tune--"that
_you_ might lead that life and attain that death." Supposing that
he were bidden so to do now, this very night, would he indeed "think
differently"? He had become a priest to serve his Maker. How would it be
were that Maker to command that he should serve Him in this extreme and
heroic fashion? Would he flinch from the steel, or would he meet it as
the martyrs met it of old?

Physically he was little suited to such an enterprise, for in appearance
he was slight and pale, and in constitution delicate. Also, there was
another reason against the thing. High Church and somewhat ascetic in
his principles, in the beginning he had admired celibacy, and in secret
dedicated himself to that state. But at heart Thomas was very much a
man, and of late he had come to see that which is against nature is
presumably not right, though fanatics may not hesitate to pronounce