no further explanation: he only said, "I
am sore stricken; I can say nothing. God will clear me."

On their return to the vestry there was further deliberation. Any
resort to legal measures for ascertaining the culprit was contrary to
the principles of the church in Lantern Yard, according to which
prosecution was forbidden to Christians, even had the case held less
scandal to the community. But the members were bound to take other
measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and
drawing lots. This resolution can be a ground of surprise only to
those who are unacquainted with that obscure religious life which has
gone on in the alleys of our towns. Silas knelt with his brethren,
relying on his own innocence being certified by immediate divine
interference, but feeling that there was sorrow and mourning behind for
him even then--that his trust in man had been cruelly bruised. _The
lots declared that Silas Marner was guilty._ He was solemnly suspended
from church-membership, and called upon to render up the stolen money:
only on confession, as the sign of repentance, could he be received
once more within the folds of the church. Marner listened in silence.
At last, when everyone rose to depart, he went towards William Dane and
said, in a voice shaken by agitation--

"The last time I remember using my knife, was when I took it out to cut
a strap for you. I don't remember putting it in my pocket again.
_You_ stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin at my
door. But you may prosper, for all that: there is no just God that
governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness
against the innocent."

There was a general shudder at this blasphemy.

William said meekly, "I leave our brethren to judge whether this is the
voice of Satan or not. I can do nothing but pray for you, Silas."

Poor Marner went out with that despair in his soul--that shaken trust
in God and man, which is little short of madness to a loving nature.
In the bitterness of his wounded spirit, he said to himself, "_She_
will cast me off too." And he reflected that, if she did not believe
the testimony against him, her whole faith must be upset as his was.
To people accustomed to reason about the forms in which their religious
feeling has incorporated itself, it is difficult to enter into that
simple, untaught state of mind in which the form and the feeling have
never been severed by an act of