misunderstandings which would arise, the restraint, the loneliness, the possible morbidity of his own feeling, the sure absence of charity in all outside criticism of his conduct, were not overlooked or under-estimated by a man so versed as himself in the tariff of the market-place. He had known full well that his decision, robbed of its romantic and picturesque motives, would affect very seriously every step in his career, and influence, as only violence to one's human affections can influence, his character, his mode of thought, his whole view of life and his work in life. This he had known--known, that is to say, as much as anything may be known of a plan not yet executed and destined to a slow accomplishment which finds its final seal of success or failure neither in this existence nor in death, but beyond the grave. Now, however, that the exterior obstacles to a happier scheme were apparently removed, the more formidable opposition of his own secret ideals stirred ominously in his conscience. Men's designs are never so indefinite and confused as when they meet with no outward resistance. A close attack has proved the salvation of most human wills and roused the energy of many drooping convictions. It is seldom good that one should enter into any vocation very easily, sweetly, and without strife. The best apprenticeships, whether ecclesiastical or religious, or civil or military, or political or artistic, are never the most calm. Whether we study the lives of saints or the lives of those distinguished in any walk of human endeavour where perfection, in some degree or other, has been at least the goal, we always find that the first years of the pursuit have been one bitter history of temptations, doubts, despondencies, struggles, and agonising inconsistencies of volition. To natures cold originally, or extinguished by a false asceticism, many seeming acts of sacrifice are but the subtle indulgence of that curious selfishness which is not the more spiritual because it is independent of others, or the less repulsive because it is most contented in its isolation from every responsibility. A renunciation means the deliberate putting away of something keenly loved, anxiously desired, or actually possessed; it does not mean a well-weighed acceptance of the lesser, rather than the greater, trials of life. When Orange had faced the desolate road before him it was as though men ploughed into his heart and left it mangled. Submission to the severities of God whatever they might be, obedience to authority, a companionless existence--these were the conditions, he knew, of the meagre joy permitted to those who, full of intellect, feeling, and kindness, undertook the rigorous discipline of a solitary journey. The world seldom takes account of the unhappy sensitiveness in devout souls; it thinks them insensible not only because they know how to keep silent, but how to sacrifice their secret woes.