I should find it easy enough to
scold everybody, and find fault with the poor, peaceful world. But as
I am not, I can only follow my own line of life, and try to see and
love as many as I can of the beautiful things that God flings down all
round us. I am not a philanthropist, I suppose; but most of the
philanthropists I have known have seemed to me tiresome, self-seeking
people, with a taste for trying to take everything out of God's hands.
I am an individualist, I imagine. I think that most of us have to find
our way, and to find it alone. I do try to help a few quiet people at
the right moment; but I believe that every one has his own circle--some
larger, some smaller--and that one does little good outside it. If
every one would be content with that, the world would be mended in a
trice."

"I am glad that you, at least, admit that there is something to be
mended," I said.

"Oh, yes," said he, "the general conditions seem to me to want mending;
but that, I humbly think, is God's matter, and not mine. The world is
slowly broadening and improving, I believe. In these days, when we
shoot our enemies and then nurse them, we are coming, I believe, to see
even the gigantic absurdity of war; but all that side of it is too big
for me. I am no philosopher! What I believe we ought to do is to be
patient, kind, and courageous in a corner. Now, I will give you an
instance. I had a friend who was a good, hard-working clergyman; a
brave, genial, courageous creature; he had a town parish not far from
here; he liked his work, and he did it well. He was the friend of all
the boys and girls in the parish; he worked a hundred useful, humble
institutions. He was nothing of a preacher, and a poor speaker; but
something generous, honest, happy seemed to radiate from the man. Of
course, they could not let him alone. They offered him a Bishopric.
All his friends said he was bound to take it; the poor fellow wrote to
me, and said that he dared not refuse a sphere of wider influence, and
all that. I wrote and told him my mind--namely, that he was doing a
splendid piece of quiet, sober work, and that he had better stick to
it. But, of course, he didn't. Well, what is the result? He is
worried to death. He has a big house and a big household; he is a
welcome guest in country-houses and vicarages; he opens churches, he
confirms; he makes endless poor speeches, and preaches weak sermons.
His time is all frittered away in dire