"I am afraid, nevertheless. But I can never know, if I do not ask. How is it—this is what puzzles me—that other people who call themselves Christians do not think as you do about this matter?"

"Soldiership?" I asked.

"Well, yes. It comes to that, I suppose."

"You know what soldiership ought to be," I said.

"But one little soldier cannot be all the rank and file of this army?" he said, looking down at me.

"O no!" I said, laughing—"there are a great many more

—there are a great many more—only you do not happen to see them."

"And these others, that I do see, are not soldiers, then?"

"I do not know," I said, feeling sadly what a stumbling-block it was. "Perhaps they are. But you know yourself, Mr. Thorold, there is a difference between soldiers and soldiers."

He was silent a while, as we mounted the hill; then he continued—