“Let me tell you the truth, Mr Stoddart.  You seem to me to have been hitherto only a dilettante or amateur in spiritual matters.  Do not imagine I mean a hypocrite.  Very far from it.  The word amateur itself suggests a real interest, though it may be of a superficial nature.  But in religion one must be all there.  You seem to me to have taken much interest in unusual forms of theory, and in mystical speculations, to which in themselves I make no objection.  But to be content with those, instead of knowing God himself, or to substitute a general amateur friendship towards the race for the love of your neighbour, is a mockery which will always manifest itself to an honest mind like yours in such failure and disappointment in your own character as you are now lamenting, if not indeed in some mode far more alarming, because gross and terrible.”

“Am I to understand you, then, that intercourse with one’s neighbours ought to take the place of meditation?”

“By no means:  but ought to go side by side with it, if you would have at once a healthy mind to judge and the means of either verifying your speculations or discovering their falsehood.”

“But where am I to find such friends besides yourself with whom to hold spiritual communion?”

“It is the communion of spiritual deeds, deeds of justice, of mercy, of humility—­the kind word, the cup of cold water, the visitation in sickness, the lending of money—­not spiritual conference or talk, that I mean:  the latter will come of itself where it is natural.  You would soon find that it is not only to those whose spiritual windows are of the same shape as your own that you are neighbour:  there is one poor man in my congregation who knows more—­practically, I mean, too—­of spirituality of mind than any of us.  Perhaps you could not teach him much, but he could teach you.  At all events, our neighbours are just those round about us.  And the most ignorant man in a little place like Marshmallows, one like you with leisure ought to know and understand, and have some good influence upon:  he is your brother whom you are bound to care for and elevate—­I do not mean socially, but really, in himself—­if it be possible.  You ought at least to get into some simple human relation with him, as you would with the youngest and most ignorant of your brothers and sisters born of the same father and mother; approaching him, not with pompous lecturing or fault-finding, still less with that abomination called condescension, but with the humble service of the elder to the younger, in whatever he may be helped by you without injury to him.  Never was there a more injurious mistake than that it is the business of the clergy only to have the care of souls.”

“But that would be endless.  It would leave me no time for myself.”