orough in his work: he had not been thorough, the
whole thing had been a _fiasco_; but he had made a little puny effort in
the direction of being genuine, and behold, in his hour of need it had
been returned to him with a reward far richer than he had deserved. He
could not have faced becoming one of the very poor unless he had had such
a bridge to conduct him over to them as he had found unwittingly in
Ashpit Place. True, there had been drawbacks in the particular house he
had chosen, but he need not live in a house where there was a Mr Holt and
he should no longer be tied to the profession which he so much hated; if
there were neither screams nor scripture readings he could be happy in a
garret at three shillings a week, such as Miss Maitland lived in.

As he thought further he remembered that all things work together for
good to them that love God; was it possible, he asked himself, that he
too, however imperfectly, had been trying to love him? He dared not
answer Yes, but he would try hard that it should be so. Then there came
into his mind that noble air of Handel's: "Great God, who yet but darkly
known," and he felt it as he had never felt it before. He had lost his
faith in Christianity, but his faith in something--he knew not what, but
that there was a something as yet but darkly known which made right right
and wrong wrong--his faith in this grew stronger and stronger daily.

Again there crossed his mind thoughts of the power which he felt to be in
him, and of how and where it was to find its vent. The same instinct
which had led him to live among the poor because it was the nearest thing
to him which he could lay hold of with any clearness came to his
assistance here too. He thought of the Australian gold and how those who
lived among it had never seen it though it abounded all around them:
"There is gold everywhere," he exclaimed inwardly, "to those who look for
it." Might not his opportunity be close upon him if he looked carefully
enough at his immediate surroundings? What was his position? He had
lost all. Could he not turn his having lost all into an opportunity?
Might he not, if he too sought the strength of the Lord, find, like St
Paul, that it was perfected in weakness?

He had nothing more to lose; money, friends, character, all were gone for
a very long time if not for ever; but there was something else also that
had taken its flight along with these. I mean the fear of that which man
co