“Well,” I added, “there are other places, Tucker. Cheer up!” Then a most discouraging change came into his eyes, he nodded his head, and replied, with vigor, “The trouble of it is, Priddy, what they say is all true, every word of it! I have a terrible voice and can’t seem to get my words out. I don’t know much about grammar; never had much of a chance on the farm. I’m not quick to learn like so many here. I have to plod and plod and plod. As for interesting sermons, why, if they aren’t interesting I do the best I can!” I wanted to ask him, then, why he persisted in entering the ministry, but I couldn’t find courage to do so, but he had read my thoughts, for he said, immediately, “You wonder why, if I know all this, I enter the ministry, and fight against hope? Well, I’ll tell you. I have felt, right along, that I might break down my handicaps. At least I thought I would give myself a thorough trial, no matter how bitter the disappointment of failure might be. I didn’t mind losing two or three places at first, if I could finally master myself. It was a sort of inherent vanity of mine that I could succeed. But this--this seems to be a judgment on me, I guess. I think I’ll pack up and go out and become--oh, anything that pays day wages. At least, I can try to be a good layman!” “Why don’t you try it another year?” I suggested. “Things might turn.” “How can I stay here if I can’t earn some money by preaching?” he asked. “If no church will take me, why, I shall have to leave the Seminary.” “I wouldn’t leave before having a good talk with some of the professors,” I suggested. “I think you have the sort of a spirit which will finally prevail, Tucker.” “Oh,” he replied, “I haven’t got much spirit--now--after that letter. They might have borne with me a month or two longer--perhaps I should have surprised them.” Then he laughed, bitterly. “You can’t guess why I came into the library with my troubles, Priddy, can you?” “No.” “You see this!” and he indicated a large, open book, on which his tears had been falling. It was a huge, ancient tome, with metal bands and chipped leather binding. The leaves were yellowed, and from them came a dampish odor of musty age. It was a Latin edition of “The Book of Martyrs” opened at the page where the fanciful wood-cut showed heaps of flaming fagots, blazing in Smithfield market, directly under the bare feet of a woman, tied to a stake and holding to her breast a crying infant.