Then there followed another pause. The Salem people drew a long breath and looked in each other's faces. They were guilty, self-convicted; but they could not tell what was to come of it, nor guess what the speaker meant. The anxious faces behind, gazing at him and his audience, were blank and horror-stricken, like so many conspirators whose leader was betraying their cause. They could not tell what accusation he might be going to make against them, to be confirmed by their consciences; but nobody except Tozer had the least conception what he was about to say. The minister resumed his interrupted speech. Nobody had ventured to cheer him; but during this last pause, seeing that he himself waited, and by way of cheering up their own troubled hearts, a few feeble and timid plaudits rose from the further end of the room. Mr. Vincent hurriedly resumed to stop this, with characteristic impatience. "Wait before you applaud me," said the Nonconformist. "I have said nothing that calls for applause. I have something more to tell you--more novel than what I have been saying. I am going to leave Carlingford. It was you who elected me, it is you who have censured me, it was you last night who consented to look over my faults and give me a new trial. I am one of those who have boasted in my day that I received my title to ordination from no bishop, from no temporal provision, from no traditionary church, but from the hands of the people. Perhaps I am less sure than I was at first, when you were all disposed to praise me, that the voice of the people is the voice of God; but, however that may be, what I received from you I can but render up to you. I resign into your hands your pulpit, which you have erected with your money, and hold as your property. I cannot hold it as your vassal. If there is any truth in the old phrase which calls a church a cure of souls, it is certain that no cure of souls can be delegated to a preacher by the souls themselves who are to be his care. I find my old theories inadequate to the position in which I find myself, and all I can do is to give up the post where they have left me in the lurch. I am either your servant, responsible to you, or God's servant, responsible to Him--which is it? I cannot tell; but no man can serve two masters, as you know. Many of you have been kind to me--chief among all," said Vincent, turning once round to look in Tozer's anxious face, "my friend here, who has spared no pains either to make me such a pastor as you wished, or to content me with that place when he had secured it. I cannot be content. It is no longer possible. So there remains nothing but to say good-bye--good-bye!--farewell! I will see you again to say it more formally. I only wish you to understand now that this is the decision I have come to, and that I consider myself no longer the minister of Salem from this night."