nly do. My heart is heavy all the time over the sad condition
of this parish. The church is closed; the bell is never rung; and the
rectory is falling into decay. But they are merely outward signs of
the real state of the community. The people do not worship any more,
and the children never go to Sunday school. With this spiritual sloth
has come a great moral decline, and there are all kinds of sins and
evil things committed of which we, as a rule, were free years ago."

"What is the cause of all this?" Douglas enquired.

"There are various reasons. The most important, I suppose, is the lack
of the right kind of a clergyman, who would understand the people, and
be a real leader. If he could win the sympathy of the majority in this
parish, the rest might be overcome."

"But didn't you have good men in the past?"

"Oh, yes, we've always had good men in a way. But of late years the
ones we had, as I said, didn't understand the people, and as far as I
could see didn't try. They knew nothing about the country ways, and
considered themselves above their people. They were always looking for
some better field, and made no bones of saying so. They used no tact
at all."

"But didn't the people try to help and encourage them?" Douglas asked.
He was beginning to feel that Joe was looking all on one side.

"Most of the people did at first, sir, and I think that things would
have come around all right if they had been let alone." Joe paused and
examined the stitches he had just put in the trace. "But," he
continued, "there's an influence in this parish which has to be
reckoned with. I'm not going to say what it is, but if you stay here
long enough you'll soon find out for yourself."

"And that influence, whatever it is, would make it hard, then, for any
clergyman to work here? Is that what I gather from your words?"

"That's just it."

Douglas longed to know what this influence really was, but he felt it
would be better not to enquire further just then. No doubt the
shoe-maker had some good reason for not telling what he knew. The only
thing, therefore, was for him to find out for himself.

"You must miss the services of the Church very much," he at length
remarked.

"I do, I certainly do," Joe emphatically replied. "Though I have
service in my own house every Sunday morning, yet it doesn't seem just
the same as in the House of God."

"Do any of the neighbours come?"

"Not one, though I've often invi