V

It was understood, after that conversation between John and his Uncle
William, that the boy should remain at school for a year or two longer,
working as a monitor, not in order that he might become a schoolmaster,
but so that he might equip his mind with knowledge. Mrs. MacDermott
wished her son to become a minister. It would be the proudest day of
her life, she said, if she could see John standing in a pulpit,
preaching a sermon. Who knew but that he might be one day be the
minister of the Ballyards First Presbyterian Church itself, the very
church in which his family had worshipped their God for generations.

John, however, had no wish to be a minister.

"You have to be queer and good to be one," he said, "and I'm not as
good as all that!"

"Well, mebbe, you'll get better as you get older," Mrs. MacDermott
insisted.

"I might get worse," he replied. "It would be a fearful thing to be a
minister, and then find out you wanted to commit a sin!"

"Ministers is like ourselves, John," Mrs. MacDermott said, "and I
daresay Mr. McCaughan sometimes wants to do wicked things, for all he's
such a good man, and has to pray to God many's a while for the strength
to resist temptation. That doesn't prove he's not fit to be a minister.
It only shows he understands our nature all the more because he has