"And you?" "I am a preacher. My duty is to preach Christ and him crucified. To save souls. There are others whose work it is to serve tables, and comfort and advise in trouble and perplexity." "But you must lose all the personal and social influence of a pastor." "If I had desired personal and social influence, I should hardly have chosen the office of a Methodist preacher. 'Out of breath pursuing souls,' was said of John Wesley and his pretorian band of helpers. I follow, as best I can, in their footsteps. But though I have no time for visiting, it is not neglected." "Yes?" said the rector, inquiringly. "Our class-leaders do that. John Dawson and Jacob Hargraves and Hannah Sarum are the class-leaders in Hallam and West Croft. You know them?" "Yes." "They are well read in the Scriptures. They have sorrowed and suffered. They understand the people. They have their local prejudices and feelings. They have been in the same straits. They speak the same tongue. It is their duty to give counsel and comfort, and material help if it is needed; to watch over young converts; to seek those that are backsliding; to use their influence in every way for such of the flock as are under their charge. John Dawson has twenty-two men and Jacob Hargraves nineteen men under their care. Hannah Sarum has a very large class. No one pastor could do as regards meat and money matters what these three can do. Besides, the wealthy, the educated, and the prosperous cannot so perfectly enter into the joys and sorrows of the poor. If a woman has a drunken husband, or a disobedient child, she will more readily go to Hannah for comfort and advice than to me; and when James Baker was out of work, it was John Dawson who loaned him five pounds, and who finally got him a job in Bowling's mill. I could have done neither of these things for him, however willing I might have been." "I have never understood the office, then. It is a wonderful arrangement for mutual help." "It gives to all our societies a family feeling. We are what we call ourselves--brothers and sisters;" and, with a smile, he stretched out his hand to take the one which Phyllis, by some sympathetic understanding, offered him. "There was something like it in the apostolic Church?" "Yes; our class-leader is the apostolic diaconate. The apostles were preachers, evangelists, hasting here and there to save souls. The deacons were the pastors of the infant churches. I preach seven times a week. I walk to all the places I preach at. It is of more importance to me that men are going to eternal destruction, than that they are needing a dinner or a coat." "But if you settled down in one place you would soon become familiar with the people's needs; you would only have to preach two sermons a week, and you could do your own pastoral duty."