Lady Mary smiled somewhat superciliously, and observed that she did not think she would be of much use.
'All who have a desire to do good will make a path of usefulness, Lady Mary, I think,' said Rowland. 'In these days the enlightened must not hide their light under a bushel. We live in stirring, striving times, when good and evil seem at terrible issue.'
'And which will conquer?' broke in Colonel Vaughan suddenly. 'I don't see that all the meetings and tracts have done much, as yet, towards their part in the fight.'
'Good must conquer eventually,' said Rowland, 'and is conquering daily and hourly.'
'In your East End parish?'
'We hope so. If our progress is slow we are not without encouragement even there, in the very thick of the battle, and where the armies of evil are ten to one against good.'
'I know something of fighting, Mr Rowland, and I fear the odds are too great. You may as well give up the conflict.'
'Remember, Colonel Vaughan, that in all the great battles of antiquity, and not a few of modern times—the Swiss for example—those who fought for freedom and right have always found their arms nerved to resist multitudes—hundreds have conquered tens of thousands. So is it with our warfare. We have strength given us that makes the single champion of the cross, powerful against the legion of his adversaries.'
'Very well said, nephew,' broke in the vicar, 'Marathon, Thermopylæ, Platea—'
'I am afraid we are keeping you from your dinner, Mrs Prothero,' interrupted Mr Gwynne, who had a nervous dread of the vicar's antiquities, whether in war or peace. 'Freda, I think we must go.'