Wentworth was beginning to find this out. He had eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, as all must do—though some more than others—and he had found it fairer to the eye than pleasant to the palate. He was getting sick of worldly men and worldly things. There is a cant of the world as well as of the Church, and he had found it out. The cloud passed away, and then came to him a clearer spiritual insight than he had ever possessed before. He had lost the childish faith of his early home, and there came in its stead the grander and fuller one of a man who had put away childish things, who had fought his fears and gathered strength, who had fought his fears and gathered strength, who had found peace and safety, not in the pleasant places, gay with flowers and musical with the song of birds, where we never dream of danger, but in the storm and tempest of the raging sea. Old ideas, modified by hard experience, asserted themselves; old inspirations were revived; old hopes and purposes were brought to life. He would be a preacher—but from the press, rather than from the more cramped and circumscribed pulpit. Temporal things also went better with him. Some of his writings had been republished, and had brought him fame and fortune. In the accomplished actress of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, known as Miss Howard, he had met a sympathetic friend. It was she who had originally raised him from the Slough of Despond, and had recalled him to his better self. It is told of an Indian Prince who in prosperity was too much elevated and in adversity too much depressed, that he gave notice that on his forthcoming birthday the most acceptable present that any of his courtiers could make him would be a sentence short enough to be engraved on a ring, and suggesting a remedy for the grievance of which he complained. Many phrases were accordingly proposed, but not one was deemed satisfactory, till his daughter came forward and offered an emerald on which were engraved two Arabic words, the literal translation of which was, ‘This, too, will pass.’ Warren Hastings, who told the story, adds how the sentence cheered him when on his trial in Westminster Hall. It was thus Wentworth was upheld, and ‘This, too, will pass’ was the thought that urged him on. CHAPTER IX. THE OLD, OLD STORY. Once upon a time there was a sad hubbub in the Independent Chapel at Sloville. At the monthly tea-meeting of the teachers the prettiest of the female teachers was missing, much to the grief of the young men, and to the relief of some plain but pious young women, who had been rather in the shade since she had come amongst them. ‘Where is Rose Wilcox?’ was the universal query. ‘She’s give up religion, and gone off to the Church, I suppose,’ said the senior deacon, who was president on the occasion.