y put more salt in her."

"But suppose it do, and the bishops get them turned out again?"

"Then, says Raymond, let the bishops look to themselves. There is such
a thing as judicial blindness: and there is such a thing as salt that
has lost its savour, and is trodden under foot of men. If the Church
cast out the children of God, God may cast out the Church of England.
There are precedents for it in the Books of Heaven. And in all those
cases, God let them go on for a while: over and over again they grieved
His Spirit and persecuted His servants; but at last there always came
one time which was the last time, and after that the Spirit withdrew,
and that Church, or that nation, was left to the lot which it had
chosen."

"Oh, Ephraim, that sounds dreadful."

"It will be dreadful," he answered, "if we provoke it at the Lord's
hand."

"One feels as if one would like to save such men," I said.

"Do you? I feel as if I should like to save such Churches. It is like
a son's feeling who sees his own mother going down to the pit of
destruction, and is utterly powerless to hold out a hand to save her.
She will not be saved. And I wonder, sometimes, whether any much sorer
anguish can be on this side Heaven!"

I was silent.

"It makes it all the harder," he said, in a troubled voice, "when the
Father's other sons, whose mother she is not, jeer at the poor falling
creature, and at her own children for their very anguish in seeing it.
I do not think the Father can like them to do that. It is hard enough
for the children without it. And surely He loves her yet, and would
fain save her and bring her home."

And I felt he spoke in parables.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. At this date, an innkeeper stood higher in the estimation of
society than at present, and a clergyman considerably lower, unless the
latter were a dignitary, or a man whose birth and fortune were regarded
as entitling him to respect apart from his profession.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

HOW THINGS CAME ROUND.

"They say, when cities grow too big,
Their smoke may make the skies look dim;
And so may life hide God from us,
But still it cannot alter Him.
And age and sorrow clear the soul,
As night and silence clear the sky,
And hopes steal out like silver stars,
And next day brightens by and by."

ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.

On the Monday morning, we left Gloucester on horseback, with