His sermons were very mediocre productions of the mind, in spite of the time he spent over their manufacture; and when his wife would pity him for all the labour they cost him, he would answer with a sigh: "My dear, it is true my sermons do take up a good deal of my time, but it is those who are obliged to listen to them that you should pity, and not me." This excellent man had his hobby, as indeed every Englishman has, especially if he be a bit of a theologian; he firmly believed that the English nation was none other than the ten tribes of Israel, who disappeared after the destruction of Jerusalem. The matter formed a never-ending subject of discussion for him, and when he chanced to come across a good soul ready to listen to him, he grew animated and almost eloquent over his theme. The idea was ever present with him, and if he retired to rest at night, beside his virtuous spouse, without having discovered some new proof of the identity of the House of Israel with the British nation, he would exclaim with Titus, "I have lost a day." Of all the domestic animals that drew breath about the vicarage there was not one more docile and useful, in the eyes of Mrs. Bartholomew Goodman, than the reverend gentleman, her husband. The worthy lady had taken the management of the parish into her own hands. In her estimation, her husband was a good, well-meaning vicar, incapable of anything beyond the writing of his sermons. As these sermons were dull enough to send one to sleep standing up, and it was usual to listen to them in a sitting posture, their chance of doing good was but small. Besides, added Mrs. Goodman to herself, sermons never converted anybody yet. The blackest sinner does not recognise his own portrait in the descriptions of the lost that fall from the preacher's lips. No, when the sermon is over, each hearer goes away very well satisfied with himself, simply reflecting on his homeward way: "Poor Smith! or poor Brown! how straight the vicar preached at him this morning!" It is always to one's neighbour that the satires of the stage or the diatribes of the pulpit apply, and that is why no one thinks of getting angry at church or in the theatre. To produce any effect upon the sinner, you must adopt arguments _ad hominem_; you must beard the animal in his den. This _rôle_ of champion of the Church militant Mrs. Goodman had marked out for herself. Satan never found himself confronted with a more formidable enemy. Mrs. Goodman, it should be explained, seemed to be built for battle: six feet high, alert and thin as a greyhound, with little piercing eyes, a complete and formidable-looking cage of teeth, an aquiline nose, curving boldly downward towards a long flat chin that it seemed to threaten one day to join; everything about this soldier of the faith denoted a resolution equal to the most arduous undertaking, a resolution that neither rebuffs, ridicule, nor danger could shake.