little incident.

After church I walked home with Mr. Lane to dine with him. Mr. Sower
joined and walked along with us. He is at the head of a large
manufacturing establishment. He is one of Mr. Lane's warmest
friends. Mr. Lane believes him to be a devoted Christian. "Well,
parson," said he, "I suppose after to-night's sermon there is
nothing left for me to do but to take a letter from the Church--if
you don't excommunicate me before I get it."

"What's the matter now?" said the parson.

"I am neither visiting," said Mr. Sower, "nor distributing tracts,
nor attending a tenement-house prayer-meeting, nor preaching, nor
working in a mission, nor doing anything in the Church, but going to
its service and paying my pew rent, and sometimes a little something
over to make up a deficiency. The fact is every day in the week I
have my breakfast an hour before you do, and am off to the factory.
I never get home till six o'clock, sometimes not then. My day's work
uses up my day's energies. I can't go out to a tenement-house
prayer-meeting, or to tract distribution in the evening. I can
hardly keep awake in our own church prayer-meeting. If it were not
for Sunday's rest my work would kill me in a year. I sometimes think
that perhaps I am devoting too much of my time to money-making. But
what shall I do? There are four hundred workmen in the factory. Most
of them have families. All of those families are really dependent on
me for their daily bread. It takes all my life's energies to keep
them employed. Shall I leave that work to take hold of tenement-
house visitation and tract distribution?"