While I was talking to Mrs Baird, Mr Stoddart, whose love for the old organ had been stronger than his dislike to the storm, had come down into the church, and now approached me. “I never saw you in the church before, Mr Stoddart,” I said, “though I have heard you often enough. You use your own private door always.” “I thought to go that way now, but there came such a fierce burst of wind and rain in my face, that my courage failed me, and I turned back—like the sparrow—for refuge in the church.” “A thought strikes me,” I said. “Come home with me, and have some lunch, and then we will go together to see some of my poor people. I have often wished to ask you.” His face fell. “It is such a day!” he answered, remonstratingly, but not positively refusing. It was not his way ever to refuse anything positively. “So it was when you set out this morning,” I returned; “but you would not deprive us of the aid of your music for the sake of a charge of wind, and a rattle of rain-drops.” “But I shan’t be of any use. You are going, and that is enough.” “I beg your pardon. Your very presence will be of use. Nothing yet given him or done for him by his fellow, ever did any man so much good as the recognition of the brotherhood by the common signs of friendship and sympathy. The best good of given money depends on the degree to which it is the sign of that friendship and sympathy. Our Lord did not make little of visiting: ‘I was sick, and ye visited me.’ ‘Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.’ Of course, if the visitor goes professionally and not humanly,—as a mere religious policeman, that is—whether he only distributes tracts with condescending words, or gives money liberally because he thinks he ought, the more he does not go the better, for he only does harm to them and himself too.” “But I cannot pretend to feel any of the interest you consider essential: why then should I go?” “To please me, your friend. That is a good human reason. You need not say a word—you must not pretend anything. Go as my companion, not as their visitor. Will you come?” “I suppose I must.” “You must, then. Thank you. You will help me. I have seldom a companion.” So when the storm-fit had abated for the moment, we hurried to the vicarage, had a good though hasty lunch, (to which I was pleased to see Mr Stoddart do justice; for it is with man as with beast, if you want work out of him, he must eat well—and it is the one justification of eating well, that a man works well upon it,) and set out for the village. The rain was worse than ever. There was no sleet, and the wind was not cold, but the windows of heaven were opened, and if the fountains of the great deep were not broken up, it looked like it, at least, when we reached the bridge and saw how the river had spread out over all the low lands on its borders. We could not talk much as we went along. “Don’t you find some pleasure in fighting the wind?” I said.