Helen did not answer; she wanted that experience of the maturer mind which could discriminate between an exceptional and an ordinary case, and refrain from sweeping judgments. The shock of pain with which she heard of evil was always with her, a spur to endeavour something against it; but while others lacked will, she lacked power. She could not cast herself into the crusading ranks and assail the powers of darkness as she thirsted to do; but the impulse of warfare was strong upon her--she could not rest. “Ah, my dear,” said Mrs Gray, “you do not know yet as you will know the misery of this wicked world, and how vain it is striving with it; every day I live I see it more and more.” “Yet it is to be pure,” said Helen, with her head erect and her eye kindling, “it is to be filled with the knowledge of Him--it is to be made fit for His reign. I do not know--no one living may see that day--but I think sometimes that if we believed that, we could have no doubt, no fear. We should look to the great hope which lies upon the world like sunshine, and not to the misery which it earns every day. It is to be pure--God is pledged to us that it shall be so; but our arms rust, and we use them not--our days pass and we do nothing; yet we are to labour for it--it is so ordained--and it is to be pure!” Helen’s eyes suddenly fell, her head drooped. The gentlemen, some of them, had already strayed upstairs, and close beside her stood the Reverend Robert listening with ostentatious attention. “Yes,” said the somewhat rough voice of Mr Wright of Fairholm; “a minister’s life is a very hard life, Miss Buchanan; we have to labour as you say; the very Sabbath, which is a resting day to everybody else, is a hard-working day to a minister.” Helen turned rapidly away; it was a strange anticlimax. “Miss Buchanan did not mean that,” said Mrs Whyte. “Miss Buchanan likes the good, wholesome work. She thinks we do too little, instead of too much, Mr Wright.” “No doubt, no doubt,” said the cumbrous, heavy man, “there is a great deal of truth in that. The people ought to know their own duty, and not leave the work entirely to us as they do; and the elders really need stirring up; but a minister--few people know how much is laid on the shoulders of a minister.” “And you, Mr Insches?” asked Mrs Whyte, smiling, as her quick eye glanced over the great, stooping, uncouth figure of the strong man beside her in whom was no impulse to work, and who actually felt fatigue more easily than would the nervous delicate girl. Mr Insches hesitated; it was not his policy to differ with Helen; but he had not received the inspiration much more than his sluggish brother. He was still, to a considerable extent, a matter-of-course man, doing what he must do, and not very much more. “The ministerial life,” said the Reverend Robert, with some dignity, “is a life of great exertion. We are never perfect of course, but it is a most laborious life, the life of a conscientious minister.”