dge if I knew how. I
trow that many men would smile at me were I to put my thoughts into
words, for it seems to me that for us who call ourselves after the
sacred name of Christ there can be no higher or holier service than the
service in which He himself embarked, and bid His followers do likewise
-- feeding the hungry, ministering to the sick, cheering the desolate,
binding up the broken heart, being eyes to the blind and feet to the
lame. He that would be the greatest, let him be the servant of all.
Those were His own words. Yet how little do we think of them now."

Raymond sat silent and amazed. Formerly such words would have seemed
comprehensible enough to him; but of late he had seen life under vastly
different aspects than any he had known in his quiet village home. The
great ones of the earth did not teach men thus to think or speak. Not to
serve but to rule was the aim and object of life.

"Wouldst have me enter the cloister, then?" he asked, a look of distaste
and shrinking upon his face; for the quiet, colourless life (as it
seemed to him) of those who entered the service of the Church was little
to the taste of the ardent boy. But John's answer was a bright smile and
a decided negative; whereupon Raymond breathed more freely.

"Nay; I trow we have priests and monks enow, holy and pious men as they
are. It has often been asked of me if I will not follow in the steps of
my good uncle here; but I have never felt the wish. It seems to me that
the habit of the monk or the cassock of the priest too often seems to
separate betwixt him and his fellow man, and that it were not good for
the world for all its holiest men to don that habit and divide
themselves from their brethren. Sir Galahad's spotless heart beat
beneath his silver armour. Would he have been to story and romance the
star and pattern he now is had he donned the monkish vesture and turned
his armed quest into a friar's pilgrimage?"

"Nay, verily not."

"I think with thee, and therefore say I, Let not all those who would
fain lead the spotless life think to do so by withdrawing from the
world. Rather let them carry about the spotless heart beneath the coat
of mail or the gay habit. Their quest need not be the less exalted --"

"But what is that quest to be?" cried Raymond eagerly; "that is what I
fain would know. Good John, give me some task to perform. What wouldst
thou do thyself in my place?"

"Thou wouldst laugh were I to tell thee."

"Try m