"Yes, thank God. There is a small band of faithful Christians as firm in their faith as I am. They know the Christ; and believing Him to be God take His Word as truth. But the greatest number have been shaken by these views that have been scattered broadcast since the Modern Churchmen's Conference at Cambridge, and there are some who are weak in the faith and just tottering, as it were." Luke rose up and began to walk about the room. "I feel," he said, "that a stronger man than I am is wanted for this place. It seems to me to be the stronghold of Satan." "When I am weak, then am I strong," said Rachel. Luke stood and looked at Rachel for a moment. Then his face broke into a smile. "Thank God for my wife," he said. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVIII. GAS STOVES VERSUS MOUNTAINS. "Next year," said Rachel one day, as she and Luke were on their way to Church, "next year we may not be able to afford a holiday. So I am resolved that we shall have a good one this August. We will go to the Lakes." Rachel wrote and secured rooms at Rydal and a month after the men's meeting mentioned in the last chapter, they started off for the North. What the sight of the beauty that now surrounded them was to Rachel can be imagined. She told Luke that she had seen nothing that could be called beautiful ever since coming to Trowsby, with the exception, she took pains to add, of her primroses and hyacinths in the little garden of which she was inordinately proud. To sit by the Lake in the cool of the evening and watch the lights and shadows on the mountains, was positive bliss to Rachel. She tried to make Luke revel in it as much as she did, but alas, his thoughts were still engrossed with his parish, not withstanding all Rachel's efforts to make him forget it. "It will be so much better for the parish as well as for you if you will only put it away from your mind," she said. But Luke still persisted in saying that his work was his life and that it was the most interesting of all subjects to him. Happily there was a friend of his staying at Rydal with whom he went long excursions, leaving Rachel to the luxury of beauty and her happy thoughts. These excursions she felt were the only things that interested Luke or turned his thoughts away from his parish, with the exception of the many books he had brought with him making their luggage over weight. Rachel had sighed as she had caught sight of him trying to force them into his suitcase; but she knew he would not be happy without them. The anniversary of their wedding took place while at the Lakes. Rachel wondered if the day meant anything special to her husband, and waited some time before she reminded him of it. They were walking on their way to Grassmere when she said: "Luke do you remember what day this is?" "To-day? No, what?" "You mean to say you don't remember?" said Rachel incredulously. Luke looked concerned. "I have not forgotten anything important in the parish I hope."