He walked on and on through ill-lit streets, fearing to stand still for a moment lest it might seem that he held back from what awaited him, fearing to arrive at that towards which he still turned with longing.  How beautiful must be a soul in the state of grace when God looked upon it with love!

Frowsy girls sat along the curbstones before their baskets.  Their dank hair hung trailed over their brows.  They were not beautiful to see as they crouched in the mire.  But their souls were seen by God; and if their souls were in a state of grace they were radiant to see:  and God loved them, seeing them.

A wasting breath of humiliation blew bleakly over his soul to think of how he had fallen, to feel that those souls were dearer to God than his.  The wind blew over him and passed on to the myriads and myriads of other souls on whom God’s favour shone now more and now less, stars now brighter and now dimmer sustained and failing.  And the glimmering souls passed away, sustained and failing, merged in a moving breath.  One soul was lost; a tiny soul:  his.  It flickered once and went out, forgotten, lost.  The end:  black, cold, void waste.

Consciousness of place came ebbing back to him slowly over a vast tract of time unlit, unfelt, unlived.  The squalid scene composed itself around him; the common accents, the burning gas-jets in the shops, odours of fish and spirits and wet sawdust, moving men and women.  An old woman was about to cross the street, an oilcan in her hand.  He bent down and asked her was there a chapel near.

—­A chapel, sir?  Yes, sir.  Church Street chapel.

—­Church?

She shifted the can to her other hand and directed him; and, as she held out her reeking withered right hand under its fringe of shawl, he bent lower towards her, saddened and soothed by her voice.

—­Thank you.

—­You are quite welcome, sir.

The candles on the high altar had been extinguished but the fragrance of incense still floated down the dim nave.  Bearded workmen with pious faces were guiding a canopy out through a side door, the sacristan aiding them with quiet gestures and words.  A few of the faithful still lingered praying before one of the side-altars or kneeling in the benches near the confessionals.  He approached timidly and knelt at the last bench in the body, thankful for the peace and silence and fragrant shadow of the church.  The board on which he knelt was narrow and worn and those who knelt near him were humble followers of Jesus.  Jesus too had been born in poverty and had worked in the shop of a carpenter, cutting boards and planing them, and had first spoken of the kingdom of God to poor fishermen, teaching all men to be meek and humble of heart.

He bowed his head upon his hands, bidding his heart be meek and humble that he might be like those who knelt beside him and his prayer as acceptable as theirs.  He prayed beside them but it was hard.  His soul was foul with sin and he dared not ask forgiveness with the simple trust of those whom Jesus, in the mysterious ways of God, had called first to His side, the carpenters, the fishermen, poor and simple people following a lowly trade, handling and shaping the wood of trees, mending their nets with patience.