"I should like—something helpful," I said.
A curious smile came into his face. "Is not the 'something helpful' always there?"
"Always!" I moved my head dissentingly.
"It ought to be."
"But things are so different in different Churches," I urged. "One cannot find the same amount of help, for instance, when the Services are dull and spiritless."
"Perhaps not the same amount," he said slowly. "But sufficient for our need—always that!" After a moment's thought, he went on—"We hear a good deal in our day about Church privileges; and none can value such privileges more highly than I do. Still, one ought not to forget that the greater a man's privileges are, the greater must be his responsibility."
"I suppose so," I said.
"Necessarily. It is an invariable rule—the more given, the more required. If our spiritual advance does not keep pace with the amount of our Church privileges, so much the worse for us."
"Yet there cannot be advance without—" I began, and stopped. For I knew I did not mean that.
"I must differ from you," he said courteously. "Some of God's greatest saints on earth have been by no means the most favoured with outward helps to devotion."