“Well, you know a man can’t just chat with his people in the pulpit as he may when he has one alone to himself! For, you see, there are hundreds there, and they are all very different, and that must make a difference in the way he can talk to them. There are multitudes who could not understand a word of what we have been saying to each other! But if a clergyman says anything in the pulpit that differs in essence from what he says out of it, he is a false prophet, and has no business there.”

“Why is he in the church, then?”

“If there be any such man in the church of England, we have to ask first how he got into it. I used to think the bishop who ordained him must be to blame for letting such a man in. But I am told the bishops haven’t the power to keep out any one who passes their examination, provided he is morally decent. If that be true, I don’t know what is to be done. What I know is, that I have enough to do with my parish, and that to mind my work is the best I can do to set the church right.”

“I suppose the bishops—some of them at least—would say, ‘If we do not take the men we can get, how is the work of the church to go on?’“

“I presume that even such bishops would allow that the business of the church is to teach men about God. That they cannot get men who know God, is a bad argument for employing men who do not know him to teach others about him. It is founded on utter distrust of God. I believe the only way to set the thing right is to refuse the bad that there may be room for God to send the good. By admitting the false they block the way for the true. But the poor bishops have great difficulties. I am glad I am not a bishop! My parish is nearly too much for me sometimes!”

Barbara could not help thinking how her mother alone had been almost too much for him.

Their talk the rest of the way was lighter and more general. To her great joy Barbara discovered that the clergyman loved books the same way the bookbinder loved them. But she did not mention Richard.

The parson took leave of her at a convenient exit from the park, rejoicing that, in his dull parish, where so few seemed to care whether they were going back to be monkeys or on to be men, he had yet found two such interesting young people as Richard and Barbara.