'Or ever can be here.'
'Ay. Practically, the anthem, chant, and hymn, have the direct devotional use; and that they may serve it, they must not too much go beyond the average musical capacity of your congregation.'
'Quite true. You have thought it all out,' said Dr. May. 'I wish more organists saw it so.'
'That's just what the St. Oswald's people say I don't! Well, you see what it is. My poor brother Edgar told me how it would be when I would not be a regular professional.'
'How what would be?'
'Why, that it would all get intolerably slow and flat, and that I should not be able to bear it. It is true enough, but I got over it once.'
'And as you say, you will do so again. The life you embraced upon principle may for a time be distasteful, but the restlessness under it can only be a trail. If I understand you right, Lance, your motto has been
"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her cunning."'
'Stay, stay, Dr. May. I don't regret that first decision—not at all—but the other—when they offered me to study for Holy Orders. I find I was like a soldier, who thought playing in the band was fighting in the ranks!' And Lance lay back in his chair, and shaded his face with his thin hand.
'And that has been preying on you all this time?'