"I suppose you remember a talk I had with you the first evening you came
here?" said the old gentleman, as they turned the corner in the road.
"Told you it would be work enough for a churchful of missionaries to
make any thing out of you, in the way of a minister, and so on?"
"Very well; I remember the whole conversation," said Bressant, pushing
up his beard into his mouth and biting it.
"Thanks to God--I can't take any credit to myself--you've been more
changed than I ever expected to see you. You've found your heart and how
to use it. That goes further toward fitting you for the ministry than
all the divinity-books ever printed."
Bressant's hankering after the ministerial life was not so strong as it
once had been; but he said nothing.
"You'll need means of support when you're married," resumed the
professor. "A few months' hard study will qualify you to take charge of
a parish. The next parish to this will be vacant before next spring. If
I apply for it now, I may be able to give it you, with your wife, as a
New-Year's gift."
"I thought of getting a place in New York. What could I do in a country
parish?"
"Expensive, living in New York!" said the professor, with a glance of
quiet scrutiny at his companion's profile.
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