,
Russia--Germany and Austria, too--are up against something that
really matters."

"What can matter comparable with the saving of a soul?"

"Losing it, sweetheart; or, better still, forgetting it--just seeing
your job and sticking it out. It is a long, long way to Tipperary,
every Tommy knows; and what (bless him!) he neither knows nor recks
about is its being a short cut to Heaven."

"Robert, will you tell me that our Faith is going down in this
horrible business?"

"Certainly not, my dear. But I seem to see that the Churches are
going down. After all, every Church--even the Church Catholic--is a
means to an end, not an end in itself. Where I've differed from four
out of five of my clerical brethren (oh, drat the professional
lingo!)--from the majority of the clergy hereabouts, is that while
they look on the Church and its formularies as something even more
sacred than the Cross itself, I have believed in it as the most
effective instrument for teaching the Cross." Mr Steele pulled a wry
mouth. "At this moment I seem to be the bigger fool. They _may_ be
right: the Church _may_ be worth a disinterested idolatry: but as a
means to teach mankind the lesson of Christ it has rather patently
failed to do its business. Men are not fools: or rather they _are_
fools, but not fools enough in the long-run to pay for being taught
to be foolish. They pay us ministers of religion, Agatha, a tidy lot
of money, if you take all Europe over: and we are not delivering the
goods. In their present frame of mind they will soon be discovering
that, for any use we are, they had better have saved the cash and put
it into heavy artillery."

"All we have lived, worked, hoped for in this parish--we two, almost
alone--"

"And now," said the Vicar ruefully, "I am leaving you quite alone.
Yes, you have a right to reproach me. . . . Old Pritchard, from St
Martin's, will take the duty. His Vicar will be only too glad to get
rid of him."

"Oh, don't let us talk of that silly old man!" said Mrs Steele
impatiently. "And as for reproaches, Robert, I have only one for
you--that you did this without consulting me."

"Yes, I know: but you see, Agatha--"

"No, I do not see." She faced him, her eyes swimming. "I might have
argued a little--have cried a little. But why--oh, why, Robert?--did
you deny me the pride to say in the end, 'Go, and God bless you'?"

The Recruiting Meeting was held in the Council Schoolroom, on
Saturday e