The only adventure that their surroundings offered them has been the adventure of practising mildly criminal misdeeds without getting landed in reformatories and prisons; those of them that have not been successful in keeping clear of detection are walking round and round prison yards, experiencing the operation of a discipline that breaks and does not build.

They were merry-hearted boys once, with nothing of the criminal or ne'er-do-weel in their natures, and now--have you ever seen a prison yard, with that walk round and round and round between grey walls under a blue sky ?" Yeovil nodded.
"It's good enough for criminals and imbeciles," said the parson, "but think of it for those boys, who might have been marching along to the tap of the drum, with a laugh on their lips instead of Hell in their hearts.
I have had Hell in my heart sometimes, when I have come in touch with cases like those.

I suppose you are thinking that I am a strange sort of parson." "I was just defining you in my mind," said Yeovil, "as a man of God, with an infinite tenderness for little devils." The clergyman flushed.
"Rather a fine epitaph to have on one's tombstone," he said, "especially if the tombstone were in some crowded city graveyard.

I suppose I am a man of God, but I don't think I could be called a man of peace." Looking at the strong young face, with its suggestion of a fighting prior of bygone days more marked than ever, Yeovil mentally agreed that he could not.
"I have learned one thing in life," continued the young man, "and that is that peace is not for this world.

Peace is what God gives us when He takes us into His rest.