nd line, they caught the gleaming
salmon, and his silver armor flashed useless in the sun. The old pastor
sat much in his little summer-house, and paced his green walk on the
border of the Lythe; but in all the gold of the sunlight, in all the
glow and the plenty around him, his heart was oppressed with the sense
of his poverty. It was not that he could not do the thing he would, but
that he could not meet and rectify the thing he had done. He could
behave, he said to himself, neither as a gentleman nor a Christian, for
lack of money; and, worst of all, he could not get rid of a sense of
wrong--of rebellious heavings of heart, of resentments, of doubts that
came thick upon him--not of the existence of God, nor of His goodness
towards men in general, but of His kindness to himself. Logically, no
doubt, they were all bound in one, and the being that could be unfair to
a beetle could not be God, could not make a beetle; but our feelings,
especially where a wretched self is concerned, are notably illogical.

The morning of a glorious day came in with saffron, gold, and crimson.
The color sobered, but the glory grew. The fleeting dyes passed, but the
azure sky, the white clouds, and the yellow fire remained. The larks
dropped down to their breakfast. The kine had long been busy at theirs,
for they had slept their short night in the midst of their food. Every
thing that could move was in motion, and what could not move was
shining, and what could not shine was feeling warm. But the pastor was
tossing restless. He had a troubled night. The rent of his house fell
due with the miserable pittance allowed him by the church; but the hard
thing was not that he had to pay nearly the whole of the latter to meet
the former, but that he must first take it. The thought of that burned
in his veins like poison. But he had no choice. To refuse it would be
dishonest; it would be to spare or perhaps indulge his feelings at the
expense of the guiltless. He must not kill himself, he said, because he
had insured his life, and the act would leave his daughter nearly
destitute. Yet how was the insurance longer to be paid? It _was_ hard,
with all his faults, to be brought to this! It _was_ hard that he who
all his life had been urging people to have faith, should have his own
turned into a mockery.

Here heart and conscience together smote him. Well might his faith be
mocked, for what better was it than a mockery itself! Where was this
thing he ca