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The Puritans by Arlo Bates
page 262 of 453 (57%)
"It seems that he is a cousin of that Mrs. Gore where we heard that
heathen, and she is greatly interested in Mr. Strathmore's election.
Mr. Wentworth promised her his vote. How people are carried away by
that man. Mr. Wentworth told me that he looked upon him as the greatest
man in the church to-day."

"It is strange," Maurice assented absently; "but he is a man of great
personal fascination."

"To me," Philip retorted, "he is a whited sepulchre. His doctrine of
mental reservation amounts to nothing less than that a priest is at
liberty to believe anything he pleases if he will only conform
outwardly."

Maurice was secretly much of the same opinion, but they came now to the
dinner table, where silence was the rule. Wynne had a feeling of
dishonesty from the fact that he concealed from his friend that he had
sought an interview with Strathmore, yet he felt that he could not
confess the visit. While they sat at table a brother read aloud, and
the reading chanced to be to-night from the book of Job. The words of
the splendid poem mingled in the mind of Maurice with the most
incongruous and unpriestly thoughts. He chafed at the routine into
which he had fallen as into a pit from which he had once escaped; the
meagre repast seemed to him pitifully poor; and most of all he was
angry with himself that he could not feel joy at his return to the
house which was the symbol of the consecrated work to which he had
given his life. After dinner came an hour and a half of recreation, and
in this he was called to the study of the Father Superior.

"You returned so late in the day," the Father said with a smile, "that
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