“No, you misunderstand,” the Bishop answered.  “I speak not in reproach, but in gratitude.  I have you to thank for showing me my path.  You led me from theories about life to life itself.  You pulled aside the veils from the social shams.  You were light in my darkness, but now I, too, see the light.  And I am very happy, only . . .” he hesitated painfully, and in his eyes fear leaped large.  “Only the persecution.  I harm no one.  Why will they not let me alone?  But it is not that.  It is the nature of the persecution.  I shouldn’t mind if they cut my flesh with stripes, or burned me at the stake, or crucified me head—­downward.  But it is the asylum that frightens me.  Think of it!  Of me—­in an asylum for the insane!  It is revolting.  I saw some of the cases at the sanitarium.  They were violent.  My blood chills when I think of it.  And to be imprisoned for the rest of my life amid scenes of screaming madness!  No! no!  Not that!  Not that!”

It was pitiful.  His hands shook, his whole body quivered and shrank away from the picture he had conjured.  But the next moment he was calm.

“Forgive me,” he said simply.  “It is my wretched nerves.  And if the Master’s work leads there, so be it.  Who am I to complain?”

I felt like crying aloud as I looked at him:  “Great Bishop!  O hero!  God’s hero!”

As the evening wore on we learned more of his doings.

“I sold my house—­my houses, rather,” he said, “all my other possessions.  I knew I must do it secretly, else they would have taken everything away from me.  That would have been terrible.  I often marvel these days at the immense quantity of potatoes two or three hundred thousand dollars will buy, or bread, or meat, or coal and kindling.”  He turned to Ernest.  “You are right, young man.  Labor is dreadfully underpaid.  I never did a bit of work in my life, except to appeal aesthetically to Pharisees—­I thought I was preaching the message—­and yet I was worth half a million dollars.  I never knew what half a million dollars meant until I realized how much potatoes and bread and butter and meat it could buy.  And then I realized something more.  I realized that all those potatoes and that bread and butter and meat were mine, and that I had not worked to make them.  Then it was clear to me, some one else had worked and made them and been robbed of them.  And when I came down amongst the poor I found those who had been robbed and who were hungry and wretched because they had been robbed.”

We drew him back to his narrative.

“The money?  I have it deposited in many different banks under different names.  It can never be taken away from me, because it can never be found.  And it is so good, that money.  It buys so much food.  I never knew before what money was good for.”

“I wish we could get some of it for the propaganda,” Ernest said wistfully.  “It would do immense good.”

“Do you think so?” the Bishop said.  “I do not have much faith in politics.  In fact, I am afraid I do not understand politics.”