I always knew what you were and said it.

They've found you out in the last week; and there's not a man in the town but what would die for you, I believe." This announcement staggered Frank.

Some men it would have only hardened in their pedantry, and have emboldened them to say: "Ah! then these men see that a High Churchman can work like any one else, when there is a practical sacrifice to be made.

Now I have a standing ground which no one can dispute from which to go on, and enforce my idea of what he ought to be." But, rightly or wrongly, no such thought crossed Frank's mind.

He was just as good a Churchman as ever--why not?
Just as fond of his own ideal of what a parish and a Church Service ought to be--why not?
But the only thought which did rise in his mind was one of utter self-abasement.
"Oh, how blind I have been! How I have wasted my time in laying down the law to these people: fancying myself infallible, as if God were not as near to them as He is to me--certainly nearer than to any book on my shelves--offending their little prejudices, little superstitions, in my own cruel self-conceit and self-will! And now, the first time that I forget my own rules; the first time that I forget almost that I am a priest, even a Christian at all! that moment they acknowledge me as a priest, as a Christian.