The Altar Steps

fred's an edifice complete except for consecration-it seemed to him that his education had centered in the prevention of his acquiring a Cockney acc

ut into fierce tirades against snobbery and hustle him out of the house to amuse himself with half-a-dozen little girls looki

t kebbidge-sta

our ma calling you

that puddle, this sminute. I'll give y

love! Our Maybel wants to blow her nose. Oo, she is a sight! Come here, Maybel, do, and leave off

nt games like Hop Scotch or to help in gathering together enough sickly greenery from the site of the new church to make the summer grotto, which in

as less genial with his own son than with any of the other children. It was natural that in these circumstances Mark should be even more dependent than most solitary children upon his mother, and no doubt it was through his passion to gratify her that he managed to avoid th

o the habit of thinking God is their special property and when they get older and find he isn't, as often as not they

usband any more than was inevitable she was determined that he should not gobble down his religion as a solid indigestible whole. On this point she even went so far as directly to contr

heir sons are the cl

er little boy. Most observant, with a sp

ion. His nights ar

e personal Devil; you can't expect a little boy of Mar

he Devil, if he behaves himsel

dderdal

sist just as much on the reality of the Saints and Angels, a child's min

y. Soften down everything in our Holy Religion that is ugly and difficult.

tween husband and wife about the

to spend much time with his son; and the teaching of Sunday morning, the clear-cut uncompromising statement of h

od was not merely a crotchety old gentleman reclining in a blue dressing-gown on a mattress of cumulus, but that He was an Eye, an all-seeing Eye,

ry?" asked Mar

. God can do

f I could do everyth

picture of the wise and compassio

hat you want? Those are not nice tears. Don't you ev

use I'm sorry except when you're sorry, and that sometimes makes me cry. Not always,

't often fee

often," h

-treated, some poor dog or cat being te

ite red inside of me, and I want t

son's capacity for logic, "God never lets His anger get the better of Him. He is not only sorry for the poor dog, but He is also sorry for the poo

own father and God to make it prudent to persevere with the discussion. On the subject of his father he always found his mother strangely un

God," Mrs. Lidd

an effort to confront once

, darling, three Pe

sig

clover-leaf we picked one

he ducks on th

bout ducks just now. I want you

nd the Holy Trinity,

d the Holy Trinity. I

ys thrilled him, that word, ever since he first heard it use

ng-pin's got to is a my

dull fact, and mystery stood for all that history was not. There were no dates in "mystery:" Mark even at seven years, such was the fate of intelligent precocity, had already had to grapple with a few conspicuous dates in the immense tale of humanity. He knew f

Trinity is

hed rolling-pins and dead bodies hud

and how the noise of the rattling seeds nearly betrayed their flight and how the plant was cursed for evermore and made as hungry as a wolf. And the story of how the robin tried to loosen one of the cruel nails so that the blood from the poor Saviour drenched his breast and stained it red for evermore, and of that other bird, the crossbill, who pecked at the nails until his beak became crossed. He could listen for ever to the tale of St. Cuthbert who was fed by ravens, o

rood upon gratefully in the darkness of the night when he lay awake and w

ll; and since even the best of toys on that tree were the cast-offs of rich little children whose parents performed a vicarious act of charity in presenting them to the poor, it may be understood that Mark's share of these was not calculated to spoil him. Hi

o think that with their bright battalions they were still marching past. He used to lie awake, listening to the sparrows and wondering what the country was like and most of all the sea. His father would not let him go into the country until he was considered old enough to go with one of the annual school treats. His mother told him that the country in Cornwall was infinitely more beautiful than Kensington Gardens, and that compared with the sea the Serpentine was nothing at all. The sea! He had heard it once in a prickly shell