The question brought on a short discussion of this method of aiding schools and churches, then much in vogue. The parson rather favoured the plan (and it is known that afterwards a better church was built for him through this device); but his companion bore but a listless part in the talk: he was balancing the chances, the honour and the dishonour, in a lottery of life.
"You are not like yourself to-day," said the parson reproachfully after silence had come on again.
I know it," replied John freely, as if awaking at last.
"Well, each of us has his troubles. Sometimes I have likened the human race to a caravan of camels crossing a desert—each with sore on his hump and each with his load so placed as to rub that sore. It is all right for the back to bear its burden, but I don't think there should have been any sore!"
"Let me ask you a question," said John, suddenly and earnestly. "Have there ever been days in your life when, if you'd been the camel, you'd have thrown the load and driver off?"
"Ah!" said the parson keenly, but gave no answer.
"Have there ever been days when you'd rather have done wrong than right?"
"Yes; there have been such days—when I was young and wild." The confession was reluctant.
"Have you ever had a trouble, and everybody around you fell upon you in the belief that it was something else?"
"That has happened to me—I suppose to all of us."