So many young
men have an idea that the only way to serve God is to go immediately to
a slum. You'll be much more discouraged at Galton than you can imagine.
You'll learn there more of the difficulties of a clergyman's life in a
year than you could learn in London in a lifetime. Rowley, as no doubt
you've heard, has just accepted a slum parish in Shoreditch. Well, he
wrote to me the other day and suggested that you should go to him. But I
dissented. You'll have an opportunity at Galton to rely upon yourself.
You'll begin in the ruck. You'll be one of many who struggle year in
year out with an ordinary parish. There won't be any paragraphs about
St. Luke's in the Church papers. There won't be any enthusiastic
pilgrims. There'll be nothing but the thought of our Blessed Lord to
keep you struggling on, only that, only our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ."
The Bishop's head wagged slowly to and fro in the silence that succeeded
his words, and Mark pondering them in that silence felt no longer that
he was saying "Lord, Lord," but that he had been called to follow and
that he was ready without hesitation to follow Him whithersoever He
should lead.
The quiet Ember Friday came to an end, and on the Saturday there were
more formalities, of which Mark dreaded most the taking of the oath
before the Registrar.
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