out of your hard-earned savings built that altar—­to allow it to be removed.  Yes, I should have been selfish enough to ask you to make that great sacrifice on my account.  But when the Bishop insisted that I and the priests who have borne with me and worked with me and preached with me and prayed with me all these years should abstain from saying those Masses which we believe and which you believe help our dear ones waiting for the Day of Judgment—­why, then, I felt that my surrender would have been a denial of our dear Lord, such a denial as St. Peter himself uttered in the hall of the high-priest’s house.  But the Bishop does not believe that our prayers here below have any efficacy or can in any way help the blessed dead.  He does not believe in such prayers, and he believes that those who do believe in such prayers are wrong, not merely according to the teaching of the Prayer Book, but also according to the revelation of Almighty God.  I do not want you to say, as you will be tempted to say, that the Bishop of Silchester in condemning our method of services at St. Agnes’ is condemning them with an eye to public opinion or to political advantage.  Alas, I have myself been tempted to say bitter words about him, to think bitter thoughts; but at this moment, with that last Nunc Dimittis ringing in my ears, Lord now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, I realize that the Bishop is acting honestly and sincerely, however much he may be acting wrongly and hastily.  It is dreadful for me at this moment of parting to feel that some of you here to-night may be turned from the face of God because you are angered against one of God’s ministers.  If any poor words of mine have power to touch your hearts, I beg you to believe that in giving us this great trial of our faith God is acting with that mysterious justice and omniscience of which we speak idly without in the least apprehending what He means.  I shall say no more in defence and explanation of the Bishop’s action, and if he should consider my defence and explanation of it a piece of presumption I send him at this solemn moment of farewell a message that I shall never cease to pray that he may long guide you on the way that leads up to eternal happiness.

“I can speak more freely of what your attitude should be towards Father Hungerford, the priest who is coming to take my place and who is going with God’s help to do far more for you here than ever I have been able to do.  I want you all to put yourselves in his place; I want you all to think of him to-night wondering, fearing, doubting, hoping, and praying.  I want you to imagine how difficult he must be feeling the situation is for him.  He will come here to-morrow conscious that there is nobody in this district of ours who does not feel, whether he be a communicant or not, that the Bishop had no right to intervene so soon and without greater knowledge of his new diocese in a district like ours.  I cannot help knowing