He would gather the
best of his people into some little Episcopal chapel and there
lead, teach, and inspire them, till the leaven spread, till the
children grew, till the world hearkened, till--till--and then
across his dream gleamed some faint after-glow of that first
fair vision of youth--only an after-glow, for there had passed
a glory from the earth.
One day--it was in 1842, and the springtide was struggling
merrily with the May winds of New England--he stood at
last in his own chapel in Providence, a priest of the Church.
The days sped by, and the dark young clergyman labored; he
wrote his sermons carefully; he intoned his prayers with a
soft, earnest voice; he haunted the streets and accosted the
wayfarers; he visited the sick, and knelt beside the dying. He
worked and toiled, week by week, day by day, month by
month. And yet month by month the congregation dwindled,
week by week the hollow walls echoed more sharply, day by
day the calls came fewer and fewer, and day by day the third
temptation sat clearer and still more clearly within the Veil; a
temptation, as it were, bland and smiling, with just a shade of
mockery in its smooth tones.
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