The Sloane Square Scandal and Other Stories (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890. Excerpt: ... "VTTHEN bad health--the result of incessant physical labour combined with an overtaxed brain and an under-fed body--compelled the Rev. Henry Armitage to resign the senior curacy of St. Simon's-in-the-Slums, he felt in bitterness of spirit for a while that his "work was finished and his course run." But this feeble condition of mind was speedily conquered when he got ay ay into pure country air and the society of an old Oxford friend. The experience of the latter, who was vicar of an abnormally ill-conditioned parish near Manchester, proved to Henry Armitage, that the paganism and profligacy, the sin and squalor and suffering, with which he had wrestled and sympathised en masse for so many years, was not confined to the great city. It existed and flourished, he found, in the fairest rural districts. Work as good, as needful, and as unpleasant was to be done among broad meadow-lands, by the sides of brawling streams, in and about smiling rose-covered cottages, and peaceful, prosperous farm-houses, as well as in the crowded streets, the reeking gutters, and the detestable dens that are illumined by the lights o' London. i To grasp this fact, to be influenced by it in the right manly way, and to seek to serve his Maker by striving to save his fellow-men, were the tonics he prescribed for himself within a month after his enforced resignation of his London curacy. Numerous and unattractive applications answered his advertisement, and in absolute faith that by so doing he was obeying the will of God, and aiding a brother priest, he accepted a locum tenency, which offered the largest congregation 'and the smallest salary of all that had been put at his disposal. It required a great effort of will to go with a good grace from the vicarage near Manchester where his...