solicitude were to decline the offer, remarking that prayer at that
moment did not seem to be opportune; and that, moreover, he, the person
thus invited, would like, first of all, to know what was to be the
special object of the proposed prayer, if he found that he could, at
the spur of the moment, bring himself at all into a fitting mood for
the task? Of him who would decline, without argument, the clergyman
would opine that he was simply a reprobate. Of him who would propose to
accompany an hypothetical acceptance with certain stipulations, he
would say to himself that he was a stiff-necked wrestler against grace,
whose condition was worse than that of the reprobate. Men and women,
conscious that they will be thus judged, submit to the hypocrisy, and
go down upon their knees unprepared, making no effort, doing nothing
while they are there, allowing their consciences to be eased if they
can only feel themselves numbed into some ceremonial awe by the
occasion. So it was with Clara, when Mr Possitt, with easy piety, went
through the formula of his devotion, hardly ever having realized to
himself the fact that of all works in which man can engage himself,
that of prayer is the most difficult.

'It is a sad loss to me,' said Mr Possitt, as he sat for half an hour
with Clara, after she had thus submitted herself. Mr Possitt was a
weakly, pale-faced little man, who worked so hard in the parish that on
every day, Sundays included, he went to bed as tired in all his bones
as a day labourer from the fields 'a very great loss. There are not
many now who understand what a clergyman has to go through, as our dear
friend did.' If he was mindful of his two glasses of port wine on
Sundays, who could blame him?

'She was a very kind woman, Mr Possitt.'