“I will yield the point when you can show me the same ground for believing the Church of England the national church, appointed such by God, that I can show you, and you know already, for receiving the Jewish Church as the appointment of God.”

“That would involve a long argument, upon which, though I have little doubt upon the matter myself, I cannot say I am prepared to enter at this moment.  Meantime, I would just ask you whether you are not sufficiently a child of the Church of England, having received from it a thousand influences for good, if in no other way, yet through your fathers, to find it no great hardship, and not very unreasonable, to pay a trifle to keep in repair one of the tabernacles in which our forefathers worshipped together, if, as I hope you will allow, in some imperfect measure God is worshipped, and the truth is preached in it?”

“Most willingly would I pay the money.  I object simply because the rate is compulsory.”

“And therein you have our Lord’s example to the contrary.”

A silence followed; for I had to deal with an honest man, who was thinking.  I resumed:—­

“A thousand difficulties will no doubt come up to be considered in the matter.  Do not suppose I am anxious to convince you.  I believe that our Father, our Elder Brother, and the Spirit that proceedeth from them, is teaching you, as I believe I too am being taught by the same.  Why, then, should I be anxious to convince you of anything?  Will you not in His good time come to see what He would have you see?  I am relieved to speak my mind, knowing He would have us speak our minds to each other; but I do not want to proselytize.  If you change your mind, you will probably do so on different grounds from any I give you, on grounds which show themselves in the course of your own search after the foundations of truth in regard perhaps to some other question altogether.”

Again a silence followed.  Then Mr Templeton spoke:—­

“Don’t think I am satisfied,” he said, “because I don’t choose to say anything more till I have thought about it.  I think you are wrong in your conclusions about the Church, though surely you are right in thinking we ought to have patience with each other.  And now tell me true, Mr Walton,—­I’m a blunt kind of man, descended from an old Puritan, one of Cromwell’s Ironsides, I believe, and I haven’t been to a university like you, but I’m no fool either, I hope,—­don’t be offended at my question:  wouldn’t you be glad to see me out of your parish now?”

I began to speak, but he went on.

“Don’t you regard me as an interloper now—­one who has no right to speak because he does not belong to the Church?”