g to each his
due. He asked them, would they sell this church to him, to do
with it as seemed to him good? If, when they built, they had
made, as it were, a false start, let them start again, and this
time so run that they might obtain the Promises of Christ. Would
they sell their church to him?

He waited for an answer.

There was a hush. The eyes that watched him seemed almost
overwhelming in their vigilance.

His eyes went wistfully off to the sky in front of him. What
beaches of gold and weed-tangles of rose-color those were to the
north-west the way of England.

Suddenly the silence was broken.

Azariah spoke out bravely. He had heard the words of his
herdsman, and he knew that he had' gone astray, even like a lost
bull. As for this thatched cattle-byre that they had built, let
him who asked for it have it! Was it not his own?

One after another spoke. Their speeches all had the same import
let the church be handed over to him that asked.

A roar of acclamation worth many speeches went up from the
hill-side Then the Bishop asked those who carried faggots to follow
him to the consecration. His shepherd's staff went before him. An
earthen vessel smoked with incense in front of that again. He
followed up the steep path in his shining robes. Behind him came
blazing grass torches, and behind them again wood-carriers. When
they reached the hill's crown there was some delay in the
gathering dusk. They were stacking the wood for the sacrifice. At
last Topready turned to his chief with a happy face. All was
prepared. The Bishop's voice rang out in one sonorous prayer of
oblation. Then someone handed him a grass torch and he kindled
the thatch above the altar. The church that misbegotten innocent
flamed up toward heaven amber and grey and crimson under the
stars.

EIGHT-EIGHT IN LAVENDER

Andrew Vine came out to Africa this year as a pilgrim, and was
disappointed. He did not go about his pilgrimage in the right way
to my thinking. For to begin with, on his own confession, he put
himself in the hands of a born organizer, who was making up a
party of fellow-travelers.

Of course they were provided with first-class tickets for the
boat, and enjoyed for sixteen days and more, in a same and narrow
scene, an amplitude of the luxuries they were used to, and tired
of. Then, dogged by a diet befitting that state to which it had
pleased Providence to call them, they rode the Great North Road
for some days in a