my congregation, but that is only an instance of the good God brings out of evil, and the evil is mine still.  Then, again, there’s all this property my wife brought me:  what have I done with that?  The kingdom of heaven has not come a hair’s-breadth nearer for my being a parson of the Church of England; neither are the people of England a shade the better that I am one of her land-owners.  It is surely time I did something, Wingfold, my boy!”

“I think it is, sir,” answered the curate.

“Then, in God’s name, what am I to do?” returned the rector, almost testily.

“Nobody can answer that question but yourself, sir,” replied Wingfold.

“It’s no use my trying to preach.  I could not write a sermon if I took a month to it.  If it were a paper on the management of a stable, now, I think I could write that—­respectably.  I know what I am about there.  I could even write one on some of the diseases of horses and bullocks—­but that’s not what the church pays me for.  There’s one thing though—­it comes over me strong that I should like to read prayers in the old place again.  I want to pray, and I don’t know how; and it seems as if I could shove in some of my own if I had them going through my head once again.  I tell you what:  we won’t make any fuss about it—­what’s in a name?—­but from this day you shall be incumbent, and I will be curate.  You shall preach—­or what you please, and I shall read the prayers or not, just as you please.  Try what you can make of me, Wingfold.  Don’t ask me to do what I can’t, but help me to do what I can.  Look here—­here’s what I’ve been thinking—­it came to me last night as I was walking about here after coming from Glaston:—­here, in this corner of the parish, we are a long way from church.  In the village there, there is no place of worship except a little Methodist one.  There isn’t one of their—­local preachers, I believe they call them—­that don’t preach a deal better than I could if I tried ever so much.  It’s vulgar enough sometimes, they tell me, but then they preach, and mean it.  Now I might mean it, but I shouldn’t preach;—­for what is it to people at work all the week to have a man read a sermon to them?  You might as well drive a nail by pushing it in with the palm of your hand.  Those men use the hammer.  Ill-bred, conceited fellows, some of them, I happen to know, but they know their business.  Now why shouldn’t I build a little place here on my own ground, and get the bishop to consecrate it?  I would read prayers for you in the abbey church in the morning, and then you would not be too tired to come and preach here in the evening.  I would read the prayers here too, if you liked.”

“I think your scheme delightful,” answered the curate, after a moment’s pause.  “I would only venture to suggest one improvement—­that you should not have your chapel consecrated.  You will find it ever so much more useful.  It will then be dedicated to the God of the whole earth, instead of the God of the Church of England.”