He had come to the moment of difficulty, of tragedy, in a career which so far, in spite of all drawbacks of physical health and cramped activities, had been one of singular happiness and success.  Ever since he had discovered his own gifts as a lecturer to working men, content, cheerfulness, nay, a passionate interest in every hour, had been quite compatible for him with all the permanent limitations of his lot.  The study of economical and historical questions; the expression through them of such a hunger for the building of a “city of God” among men, as few are capable of; the evidence not to be ignored even by his modesty, and perpetually forthcoming over a long period of time, that he had the power to be loved, the power to lead, among those toilers of the world on whom all his thoughts centred—­these things had been his joy, and had led him easily through much self-denial to the careful husbanding of every hour of strength and time in the service of his ideal end.

And now he had come upon opposition—­the first cooling of friendships, the first distrust of friends that he had ever known.

Early in the spring of this year a book called To-morrow and the Land had appeared in London, written by a young London economist of great ability, and dealing with the nationalisation of the land.  It did not offer much discussion of the general question, but it took up the question as it affected England specially and London in particular.  It showed—­or tried to show—­in picturesque detail what might be the consequences for English rural or municipal life of throwing all land into a common or national stock, of expropriating the landlords, and transferring all rent to the people, to the effacement of taxation and the indefinite enrichment of the common lot.  The book differed from Progress and Poverty, which also powerfully and directly affected the English working class, in that it suggested a financial scheme, of great apparent simplicity and ingenuity, for the compensation of the landlords; it was shorter, and more easily to be grasped by the average working man; and it was written in a singularly crisp and taking style, and—­by the help of a number of telling illustrations borrowed directly from the circumstances of the larger English towns, especially of London—­treated with abundant humour.

The thing had an enormous success—­in popular phrase, “caught on.”  Soon Hallin found, that all the more active and intelligent spirits in the working-class centres where he was in vogue as a lecturer were touched—­nay, possessed—­by it.  The crowd of more or less socialistic newspapers which had lately sprung up in London were full of it; the working men’s clubs rang with it.  It seemed to him a madness—­an infection; and it spread like one.  The book had soon reached an immense sale, and was in every one’s hands.