“Another point which I feel has been missed.  In giving up Aldershot, we are not giving up active work entirely.  We have a good deal of active work here.  We have our guest-house for casuals, and we are always ready to feed, clothe, and shelter any old soldiers who come to us.  We are still young as an Order.  We have only four professed monks, including the Reverend Father.  We want to have more than that before we can consider ourselves established.  I for one should hesitate to take my final vows until I had spent a long time in strict religious preparation, which in the hurry and scurry of active work is impossible.  We have listened to a couple of violent speeches, or at any rate to one violent speech by a brother who was for a year in close touch with myself.  I appeal to him not to drag the discussion down to the level of lay politics.  We are free, we novices, to leave to-morrow.  Let us remember that, and do not let us take advantage of our freedom to impart to this Mother House of ours the atmosphere of the world to which we may return when we will.

“And let us remember when we oppose the judgment of the Reverend Father that we are exalting ourselves without reason.  Let us remember that it is he who by his eloquence and by his devotion and by his endurance and by his personality, has given us this wonderful house.  Are we to turn round and say to him who has worked so hard for us that we do not want his gifts, that we are such wonderful fishers of men that we can be independent of him?  Oh, my dear Brethren, let me beg you to vote in favour of abandoning all our dependencies until we are ourselves no longer dependent on the Reverend Father’s eloquence and devotion and endurance and personality.  God has blessed us infinitely.  Are we to fling those blessings in His face?”

Brother Dominic sat down; after him in succession Brother Raymond, Brother Dunstan, Brother Lawrence, Brother Jerome, Brother Nicholas, and Brother Augustine spoke in support of the Father Superior.  Brother Giles refused to speak, and though Mark’s heart was thundering in his mouth with unuttered eloquence, at the moment he should rise he could not find a word, and he indicated with a sign that like Brother Giles, he had nothing to say.

“The voting will be by ballot,” the Reverend Father announced.  “It is proposed to give up the Priory at Aldershot.  Let those brethren who agree write Yes on a strip of paper.  Let those who disagree write No.”

All knelt in silent prayer before they inscribed their will; after which they advanced one by one to the ballot-box, into which under the eyes of a large crucifix they dropped their papers.  The Father Superior did not vote.  Brother Simon, who was still a postulant, and not eligible to sit in Chapter, was fetched to count the votes.  He was much excited at his task, and when he announced that seven papers were inscribed Yes, that six were inscribed No, and that one paper was blank, his teeth were chattering.