"Behind my church, in a dark, unwholesome alley called. Crook Lane, we have a clergy house, at present let out in tenements, the cellar being occupied as a gin shop. As soon as these premises can be cleared of their encumbrances I shall turn them into a club for working girls. Why not? In the old days the Church came to the people: let it come to the people now. Here we are in the midst of this mighty stronghold of the devil's kingdom of sin and crime. Foreign clubs, casinos, dancing academies, and gambling houses are round about us. What are we to do? Put up a forest of props (as at the Abbey) and keep off touch and contamination? God forbid! Let us go down into these dens of moral disease and disinfect them. The poor working girls, of Soho want their Sunday: give it them. They want music and singing: give it them. They want dancing: give them that also, for God's sake, give it them in your churches, or the devil will give it them in his hells!

"Expect to be howled at of course. Some good people will think I am either a fanatic or an artful schemer, while the clerical place-seekers, who love the flesh-pots of Egypt and have their eyes on the thrones of the Church and the world, will denounce my 'secularity' and tell me I am feeding the 'miry troughs' of the publican and sinner. No matter, if only God is pleased to vouchsafe 'signs following.' And one weary-faced lonely girl, grown fresh of countenance and happy of mien, or one bright little woman, snatched from the brink of perdition, will be a better fruit, of religion than some of them have seen for many a year.

"As soon as the workmen have cleared out I am going to establish a daily service and keep the church open always. Still at Mrs. Callender's, you see; but I am refusing all invitations, except as a priest, and already I don't seem to, have time to draw my breath. No income connected with St. Mary Magdalene's, or next to none, just enough to pay the caretaker; but I must not complain of that, for it is the accident to which I owe my church, nobody else wanting it under the circumstances. I had begun to think my time in the monastery wasted, but God knew better. It will help me to live the life of poverty, of purity, of freedom from the world.

"Love to the grandfather and the ladies. How I wish you were with me in the thick of the fight! Sometimes I dream you are, too, and I fancy I see you in the midst of these bright young things with their flowers and feathers--they will make beautiful Christians yet! Oddly enough, on the day you travelled to the island, every hour that took you farther away seemed to bring you nearer. Greetings!"

VII.

"Glenfaba,'the Oilan.'