When a neighbour once said to him, "I see, Tommy Tracks, you hold with the saying, `Cleanliness is next to godliness,'"--"Nay, I don't," was his reply. "I read it another way: `Cleanliness is a part of godliness.' I can't understand a dirty or disorderly Christian-- leastways, it's very dishonouring to the Master; for dirt and untidiness and confusion are types and pictures of sin. A true Christian ought to be clean and tidy outside as well as in. Christ's servants should look always cleaner and neater than any one else; for aren't we told to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in _all_ things? And don't dirtiness and untidiness in Christians bring a reproach on religion? And then, if things are out of their place--all sixes and sevens--why, it's just setting a trap for your feet. You'll stumble, and lose your temper and your time, and fuss the life out of other people too, if things aren't in their proper places, and you can't lay hold of a thing just when you want it. It's waste of precious time and precious peace, and them's what Christians can't afford to lose. Why, Jenny Bates, poor soul, used to lose her temper, and she'd scarce find it afore she lost it again, and just because she never had anything in decent order. And yet she were a godly woman; but her light kept dancing about, instead of shining steadily, as it ought to have done, just because she never knew where to put her hand on anything she wanted, and everything was in her way and in her husband's way, except what they was looking for at the time. It's a fine thing when you can stick by the rule, `A place for everything, and everything in its place.'" But now it is not to be supposed for a moment that a man like Thomas Bradly could escape without a great deal of persecution in such a place as Crossbourne. All sorts of hard names were heaped upon him by those who were most rebuked by a life so manifestly in contrast to their own. Many gnashed upon him with their teeth, and would have laid violent hands on him had they dared. Sundry little spiteful tricks also were played off upon him. Thus, one morning he found that the word "Surgery" had been obliterated from his private door, and the word "Tomfoolery" painted under it. He let this pass for a while unnoticed and unremedied, and then restored the original word; and as his friends and the police were on the watch, the outrage was not repeated. All open scoffs and insults he took very quietly, sometimes just remarking, when any one called him "canting hypocrite," or the like, that "he was very thankful to say that it wasn't true."