Lamb, Mrs Thompson. Yea,' he exclaims frantically, `though they be as scarlet, yet shall they be as white
as wool,' and he makes off as fast as he can from the fetid atmosphere of the cottage to the pure air
outside. Oh, how thankful he is when the interview is over!
He returns home, conscious that he has done his duty, and administered the comforts of religion to a
dying sinner. His admiring wife awaits him at the Rectory, and assures him that never yet was clergyman
so devoted to the welfare of his flock. He believes her; he has a natural tendency to believe everything
that is told him, and who should know the facts of the case better than his wife? Poor fellow! He has
done his best, but what does a fish's best come to when the fish is out of water? He has left meat and
wine - that he can do; he will call again and will leave more meat and wine; day after day he trudges over
the same plover-haunted fields and listens at the end of his walk to the same agony of forebodings,
which day after day he silences, but does not remove, till at last a merciful weakness renders the sufferer
careless of her future, and Theobald is satisfied that her mind is now peacefilly at rest in Jesus.