Mark wrote an account of this incident, which had given him intense pleasure, to Mr. Ogilvie.  Perhaps the Rector was afraid that Mark in his ambition to avoid “churchiness” was inclining toward the opposite extreme; or perhaps, charitable and saintly man though he was, he felt a pang of jealousy at Mark’s unbounded admiration of his new friend; or perhaps it was merely that the east wind was blowing more sharply than usual that morning over the wold into the Rectory garden.  Whatever the cause, his answering letter made Mark feel that the Rector did not appreciate Father Rowley as thoroughly as he ought.

     The Rectory,

     Wych-on-the-Wold.

     Oxon.

     Dec. 1.

     My dear Mark,

I was glad to get your long and amusing letter of last week.  I am delighted to think that as the months go by you are finding work among the poor more and more congenial.  I would not for the world suggest your coming back here for Christmas after what you tell me of the amount of extra work it will entail for everybody in the Mission House; at the same time it would be useless to pretend that we shan’t all be disappointed not to see you until the New Year.

On reading through your last letter again I feel just a little worried lest, in the pleasure you derive from Father Rowley’s treatment of what was no doubt a very irritating young man, you may be inclined to go to the opposite extreme and be too ready to laugh at real piety when it is not accompanied by geniality and good fellowship, or by an obvious zeal for good works.  I know you will acquit me of any desire to defend extreme “churchiness,” and I have no doubt you will remember one or two occasions in the past when I was rather afraid that you were tending that way yourself.  I am not in the least criticizing Father Rowley’s method of dealing with it, but I am a trifle uneasy at the inordinate delight it seems to have afforded you.  Of course, it is intolerable for any young man serving a priest at Mass to watch his fingers all the time, but I don’t think you have any right to assume because on this occasion the young man showed himself so sensitive to mere externals that he is always aware only of externals.  Unfortunately a very great deal of true and fervid piety exists under this apparent passion for externals.  Remember that the ordinary criticism by the man in the street of Catholic ceremonies and of Catholic methods of worship involves us all in this condemnation.  I suppose that you would consider yourself justified, should the circumstances permit (which in this case of course they do not), in protesting against a priest’s not taking the Eastward Position when he said Mass.  I was talking to Colonel Fraser the other day, and he was telling me how much he had enjoyed the ministrations of the Reverend Archibald Tait, the Leicestershire cricketer, who throughout the “second service” never once turned