If the communication was worthy, he thus got all the worth of it; if it was evil, he saw to the bottom of it, and discovered, if such were there, the filthy reptile in the mud beneath, which was setting the whole ugly pool in commotion.  By this deliberateness he also gave the greater weight to what answer he saw fit to give at last—­sometimes with the result of considerable confusion of face to the narrator.  In the present instance, he contented himself with the strongest assurance that the whole story was a mistake so far as it applied to Mr. Faber, who had, in fact, dismissed his assistant for the very crime of which they accused himself.  The next afternoon, he walked the whole length of Pine street with the doctor, conversing all the way.

Nor did he fail to turn the thing to advantage.  He had for some time been awaiting a fit opportunity for instructing his people upon a point which he thought greatly neglected:  here was the opportunity, and he made haste to avail himself of it.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE GROANS OF THE INARTICULATE.

The rest of the week was rainy, but Sunday rose a day of perfect summer.  As the curate went up the pulpit-stair, he felt as if the pulse of all creation were beating in unison with his own; for to-day he was the speaker for the speechless, the interpreter of groans to the creation of God.

He read, Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father, and said: 

“My friends, doth God care for sparrows?  Or saith He it altogether for our sakes, and not at all for the sparrows?  No, truly; for indeed it would be nothing to us if it were not every thing to the sparrows.  The word can not reach our door except through the sparrow’s nest.  For see! what comfort would it be to us to be told we were of more value than ever so many sparrows, if their value was nothing—­if God only knew and did not care for them?  The saying would but import that we were of more value than just nothing.  Oh, how skillful is unbelief to take all the color and all the sweetness and all the power out of the words of The Word Himself!  How many Christians are there not who take the passage to mean that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without the knowledge of its Creator!  A mighty thing that for the sparrow!  If such a Christian seemed to the sparrow the lawful interpreter of the sparrow’s Creator, he would make an infidel of the sparrow.  What Christ-like heart, what heart of loving man, could be content to take all the comfort to itself, and leave none for the sparrows?  Not that of our mighty brother Paul.  In his ears sounded, in his heart echoed, the cries of all the creation of God.  Their groanings that could not be uttered, roused the response of his great compassion.  When Christ was born in the heart of Paul, the whole creation of God was born with him; nothing that could feel could he help loving;