“That’s a question the next Roman Catholic parish priest might have something to say about,” rejoined Edward. “Anyway, people seem willing to risk it. Don’t you think, Archdeacon, instead of trying to filch flocks from the folds, the shepherds of the Church could find quite enough to do in casting their crooks about those wandering sheep that are utterly lost in the wilderness?” “Pray condescend to particularise, Mr. Beaumont,” begged his host. “Well, a day or two before I came down here a vulgar case, of which I need not trouble you with the details, gave me a glimpse of the workings of the Salvation Army.” “A most valuable institution, no doubt,” said the Archdeacon. “Yes,” said Edward, “but you will pardon my saying—why a Salvation Army at all? Here are more than half our churches and chapels with yawning pews, and out in the street are crowds of earnest enthusiasts following a dancing Dervish and a big drum.” “You wouldn’t have me dancing in my cassock through Caisterholm, and the parish clerk or verger tinkling a tambourine?” “Well, no. But, after all, if the mountain won’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain. And that’s just General Booth’s secret.” “A very latitudinarian young man,” commented one vicar to another, as they jogged home together in the still autumnal evening through the fragrant hedgerows. “Whatever did St. Clair mean by taking advice from a man like him. But the man may be a good lawyer for all that, and I won’t look too closely at his Church principles if he’ll pull my good sovereigns out of those infernal Skerne blasts.”