sons of Aaron should needs be. I mean, of course, so many at
one time."

"Why, man! one at once should have been crushed under the work!"
answered Dr Thorpe. "If one man had been to slay Solomon his twenty-two
thousand sacrifices, he should not have made an end by that day month."

"Good. Then the lesser priests were needed, because of the
insufficiency of the high priest for all that lacked doing?"

"That I allow," said Dr Thorpe, after some meditation.

"See you what you allow, friend?" Avery answered, softly. "If, then,
the lesser priests be yet needed, it must be by reason that the High
Priest is yet insufficient, and the sacrifice which He offered is yet
incomplete."

"Nay, nay, Jack, nay!" cried the old man, much moved, and shaking his
head.

"It must be so, dear friend. To what good were those common and
ordinary priests, save to aid the high priest in that which, being but a
man, he might not perform alone? Could the high priest have sufficed
alone, what need were there of other? But our High Priest sufficeth,
and hath trodden the wine-press alone. His sacrifice is perfect, is
full, is eternal. There needeth no repeating--nay, there can be no
repeating thereof. What do we, then, with priests now? Where is their
sacrifice? And a priest that sacrificeth not is a gainsaying of words.
Friend, whoso calleth him a priest now, by that word denieth the
sufficiency of the Lord Jesus."

"And whoso calleth the Table an altar--" began Dr Thorpe.

"Is guilty of the same sin," pursued he; "the same affront unto the
Majesty of Him that will not give His glory to an other."

"They mean it not so, I verily believe," responded Dr Thorpe, a little
uneasily. "They mean assuredly to do Him honour."

"And He can see the difference," said Avery, tenderly, "betwixt the
denial of Peter that loved Him, and the betrayal of Judas that hated
Him. Our eyes are rarely fine enough for that. More than once or
twice, had the judgment lain with us, we had, I think, condemned Peter
and quitted Judas."

"I would all this variance betwixt Lutherans and Gospellers might
cease!" resumed Dr Thorpe, rather bitterly. "When we should be pointing
our spears all against the enemy, we are bent on pricking of each
other!"

"A vain wish, friend," answered he. "So far as I can see, that hath
been ever since the world began, and will last unto the world's end. I
am not so fond as to look for Christ's kingdom until I see the Kin