On the morning of the day of the election Scourby was fairly quiet, although many of the people had taken a holiday, and were spending it in the public-houses and the streets. The noise would come later, when the votes had been counted and the result was known. The greatest enthusiasm was evinced whenever Mr. Lavender appeared on the scene. If only the enthusiasm had been for a better man, how good this feeling of exultation and loyalty would have proved! Alas, for the nation that is not enthusiastic! Few sights in England have been more pleasant than the rapture with which the men have welcomed their Parliamentary representative, when the man has been worthy. Such elections, even when they have been stormy, have been among the glories of our land. It was new for such men as Lavender to be “the chosen of the people,” and because it was new the steady, stable middle classes could not believe in it. But much had been going on of which they had little idea. Unfortunately, it had long been the case that many of the best men of the Churches had altogether held aloof from politics, when they ought to have been in the very forefront of the battle. The reason they gave was that Christianity and politics seemed to have little in common. Many a party had had its birth in some public-house, and many a seat had been won by exaggerations and lies told of the opposite side, and by broadcast promises that had never been kept, nor were ever intended to be. To buy the more ignorant part of the working men by flattering their vanity, by setting class against class, by misrepresentations, and the stirring up of their worst passions of hate and selfishness—these had been the policy of more than a few who had by these means won the highest honours in the land; but men with consciences educated at the Cross could not stoop to these things; if they tried, they generally failed; and, in the end, far too many withdrew from politics altogether, thereby exhibiting a pusillanimity which was little creditable to themselves or their Church, since, together, they were well able to insist that political contests should be fought on quite other lines, and with different weapons. In the meantime strong efforts were made by the opponents of the Churches. The bar-room in many instances was the canvassing ground, and one notable feature in the case was that hundreds of young men were Lavender’s adherents. When they grew older they might become wiser; but at present a very large proportion of young householders voted for him. The fact was that he and his party had helped them to their votes, for certain men who had cheap house-property had been careful to encourage young men to become occupiers that they might exercise the franchise; and these men had been well looked after, not only on the eve of the contest, but for more than a year, and had by this means been secured by these far-seeing men of the world.