annuity allotted him; for, as far back as she could
remember, she had been aware of a dislike to his position--partly from
pride it may be, but partly also from a sense of the imperfection of the
relation between him and his people--one in which love must be
altogether predominant, else is it hateful--and chiefly because of a
certain sordid element in the community--a vile way of looking at sacred
things through the spectacles of mammon, more evident--I only say more
evident--in dissenting than in Church of England communities, because of
the pressure of expenses upon them. Perhaps the impossibility of
regarding her father's church with reverence, laid her mind more open to
the cause of her trouble--such doubts, namely, as an active intellect,
nourished on some of the best books, and disgusted with the weak fervor
of others rated high in her hearing, had been suggesting for years
before any words of Faber's reached her. The more her devout nature
longed to worship, the more she found it impossible to worship that
which was presented for her love and adoration. See believed entirely in
her father, but she knew he could not meet her doubts, for many things
made it plain that he had never had such himself. An ordinary mind that
has had doubts, and has encountered and overcome them, or verified and
found them the porters of the gates of truth, may be profoundly useful
to any mind similarly assailed; but no knowledge of books, no amount of
logic, no degree of acquaintance with the wisest conclusions of others,
can enable a man who has not encountered skepticism in his own mind, to
afford any essential help to those caught in the net. For one thing,
such a man will be incapable of conceiving the possibility that the net
may be the net of The Fisher of Men.

Dorothy, therefore, was sorely oppressed. For a long time her life had
seemed withering from her, and now that her father was fainting on the
steep path, and she had no water to offer him, she was ready to cry
aloud in bitterness of spirit.

She had never heard the curate preach--had heard talk of his oddity on
all sides, from men and women no more capable of judging him than the
caterpillar of judging the butterfly--which yet it must become. The
draper, who understood him, naturally shrunk from praising to her the
teaching for which he not unfrequently deserted that of her father, and
she never looked in the direction of him with any hope. Yet now, the
very first time s