The Order of St Martin of Tours was one of the attempts to reconcile the generous yearnings of mankind with modern conditions. Its field of action had no definable limit, and whatever a man wished to give it was prepared to utilise. It was not primarily concerned with money, although judged by the guaranteed resources upon which it could call if necessary, it would rank as a rich society. It imposed no subscription and made no outside appeal. Upon its books, against the name of every member, there was entered what he bound himself to do when it was required of him. It was a vast and comprehensive list, so varied that few ever genuinely applied for the services of the Order without their needs being satisfied. The city man willing to give a foolish and repentant youth another chance of honest work; the Sussex farmer anxious to prove what a month of South Down fare and Channel breezes would do for a small city convalescent; the prim little suburban lady, much too timid to attempt any personal contact with the unknown depths of sin and suffering, but eager to send her choicest flowers and most perfect fruit to any slum sick-room; the good-hearted laundry girl who had been through the fires herself, offering to "pal up to any other girl what's having a bit of rough and wants to keep straight without a lot of jaw,"--all found a deeper use in life beneath the sign of St Martin's divided cloak. Children, even little children, were not shut out; they could play with other, lonely, little children, and renounce some toys. The inconspicuous young man standing in Sir John Hampden's library--he was in a cheap boot shop, but he gave his early closing day to serve the Order as a messenger, and there were millionaires who gave less--found the thing he searched for, and handed to Sir John an unsealed envelope. "I accept," said the baronet, after glancing at the slip it contained. This was what he accepted: ORDER OF ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. _Case_. . . John Flak, 45 Paradise Buildings, Paradise Street, Drury Lane, W.C. _Cause_ . . Street Accident. _Requirement_ Service through the night. _Recommender_ L. K. Stone, M.D., 172 Great Queen Street, W.C. WALTHAM, MASTER. He could have declined; and his membership would have been at an end. But in a mission of personal service he could not accept and appoint a substitute. The Order was modern, business-like, reasonable, unemotional, and quite prepared to take humanity as it was. It did not seek to impose the ideal Christian standard, logically recognising that if a man gave _all_ he possessed, a system of Christian laws (a Caesar whom he was likewise bidden to obey) would at once incarcerate him in a prison for having no visible means of subsistence, and, if he persisted in his unnatural Christian conduct, in a lunatic asylum, where in its appointed season he would have the story of the Rich Ruler read for his edification.