“Ah! that simile reminds me of my own situation. I have emphatically rolled off _my_ log.” “Ye wrote me ye had resigned your charge.” “Resigned! Did you ever hear of the grand bounce?” said Mr. Clare drolly. “Because that’s what I got for preaching Socialism.” “Mother of Moses! Tell us about that.” “Well, you know I always held the opinion that to call nothing one’s own, to hold all things in common, is the flower and crown of Christianity. But it was _merely_ an opinion, not a belief; I was what you might call a _dilettante_ Socialist. My first call was to a fashionable church as assistant, as you remember; and when this last charge was offered me, I slipped into it, some way. I suppose I had become accustomed to a life among people of wealth and cultivation; and, besides, there was at the time some external pressure, though quite unconscious on the part of the person who exerted it. I wanted to be in a position which no one need be ashamed to share with me.” His voice had grown hoarse and low, and Father McClosky bent his brow on his hand without attempting a reply. After a moment the speaker continued,— “Well, that is all over now; and I can thank Him for her life and—for her death. But it cut to the roots of my life; it tore the scales from my eyes, and showed me the true meaning of all that I saw around me. I could be a _dilettante_ no longer. Yet just because the commonplace business arrangements of the world had suddenly become so terrible, so openly subversive of God’s order and out of harmony with His creation, I did my utmost to avoid giving offence. I could not expect my people to see at a glance the hollowness and falsity of all they had been trained to believe right and just, or to spring with one bound to the height which I had attained through many struggles and much tribulation. But one cannot be so gentle, so considerate, that a congregation of millionnaires will not take offence at being told that every dollar they own, beyond what is needful for themselves and their families, is a wrong to Christ’s poor; that the Jewish land-laws were of divine appointment, and a model for our imitation; and that every man, woman, and child has a moral right, and should have a legal one, to an equal share of the wealth—not the money—belonging to the nation.” Father McClosky drew a long breath. “Ye said _that_ to them?” he said.