To this broken and bankrupt creature John Storm found his footsteps turning on that night when his own heart lay waste. But on entering the ward he saw that Brother Paul had a visitor already. He was an elderly man in a strange habit--a black cassock which buttoned close at the neck and fell nearly to his feet, and was girded about the waist by a black rope that had three great knots at its suspended ends. And the habit was not more different from the habit of the world than the face of the wearer was unlike the worldly face. It was a face full of spirituality, a face that seemed to invest everything it looked upon with a holy peace--a beautiful face, without guile or craft or passion, yet not without the signs of internal strife at the temples and under the eyes; but the battles with self had all been fought and won. As John Storm stepped up, the old man rose from his chair by the patient's bed. “This is the Father Superior, sir,” said Brother Paul. “I've just been hearing of you,” said the Father in a gentle voice. “You have been good to my poor brother.” John Storm answered with some commonplace--it had been a pleasure, a happiness; the brother would soon leave them; they would all miss him--perhaps himself especially. The Father resumed his chair and listened with an earnest smile. “I understand you, dear friend,” he said. “It is so much more blessed to give than to receive! Ah, if the poor blind world only knew! How it fights for its pleasures that perish, and its pride of life that passes away! Yet to succour a weaker brother, or protect a fallen woman, or feed a little child will bring a greater joy than to conquer all the kingdoms of the earth.” John Storm sat down on the end of the bed. Something had gone out to him in a moment, and he was held as by a spell. The Father talked of the love of the world--how strange it was, how difficult to understand, how tragic, how pitiful! The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye--how mean, how delusive, how treacherous! To think of the people of that mighty city day by day and night by night making themselves miserable in order that they might make themselves merry; to think of the children of men scouring the globe for its paltry possessions, that could not add one inch to the stature of the soul, while all the time the empire of peace and joy and happiness lay here at hand, here within ourselves, here in the little narrow compass of the human heart! To give, not to get, that was the great blessedness, and to give of yourself, of your heart's love, was the greatest blessedness of all. John Storm was stirred. “The Church, sir,” he said, “the Church itself has to learn that lesson.” And then he spoke of the hopes with which he had come up to London, and how they were being broken down and destroyed; of his dreams of the Church and its mission, and how they were dying or dead already.