"There are various reasons. The most important, I suppose, is the lack of the right kind of a clergyman, who would understand the people, and be a real leader. If he could win the sympathy of the majority in this parish, the rest might be overcome."
"But didn't you have good men in the past?"
"Oh, yes, we've always had good men in a way. But of late years the ones we had, as I said, didn't understand the people, and as far as I could see didn't try. They knew nothing about the country ways, and considered themselves above their people. They were always looking for some better field, and made no bones of saying so. They used no tact at all."
"But didn't the people try to help and encourage them?" Douglas asked.
He was beginning to feel that Joe was looking all on one side.
"Most of the people did at first, sir, and I think that things would have come around all right if they had been let alone." Joe paused and examined the stitches he had just put in the trace. "But," he continued, "there's an influence in this parish which has to be reckoned with. I'm not going to say what it is, but if you stay here long enough you'll soon find out for yourself."
"And that influence, whatever it is, would make it hard, then, for any clergyman to work here? Is that what I gather from your words?"
"That's just it."
Douglas longed to know what this influence really was, but he felt it would be better not to enquire further just then. No doubt the shoe-maker had some good reason for not telling what he knew. The only thing, therefore, was for him to find out for himself.
"You must miss the services of the Church very much," he at length remarked.
"I do, I certainly do," Joe emphatically replied. "Though I have service in my own house every Sunday morning, yet it doesn't seem just the same as in the House of God."