not long since such a perplexity came my way. For I had reached a
spot in my onward path at which I must make a decided choice. I must
go either to the right or the left: for, as Goldsmith has remarked
with great force, when the road you are pursuing parts into several
roads, you must be careful to follow only one. And I had to decide
between country and town. I had to resolve whether I was to remain
in that quiet cure of souls about which I formerly told you; or go
into the hard work and hurry of a large parish in a certain great
city.

I had been for more than five years in that sweet country place: it
seemed a very long time as the days passed over. Even slow-growing
ivy grew feet longer in that time, and climbing roses covered yards
and yards of wall. And for very many months I thought that here I
was to live and die, and never dreamt of change. Not indeed that
my tastes were always such. At the beginning of that term of years,
when I went down each Sunday morning to preach in the plain little
church to a handful of quiet rustic people, I used to think of
a grand edifice where once upon a time, at my first start in my
profession, I had preached each afternoon for many months to a very
large congregation of educated folk; and I used to wonder whether
my old friends remembered and missed me. Once there was to me
a fascination about that grand church, and all connected with it:
now it is to me no more than it is to every one else, and I pass
near it almost every day and hardly look at it. Other men have
taken my old place in it, and had the like feelings, and got over
them. Several of these men I never saw: how much I should like to
shake each man's hand! But all these fancies were long, long ago:
I was pleased to be a country parson, and to make the best of it.
Friends, who have held like stations in life, have you not felt,