Page 78 - of-human-bondage-

He read industriously, as he read always, without criticism,
stories of cruelty, deceit, ingratitude, dishonesty, and low
cunning. Actions which would have excited his horror in
the life about him, in the reading passed through his mind
without comment, because they were committed under the
direct inspiration of God. The method of the League was
to alternate a book of the Old Testament with a book of the
New, and one night Philip came across these words of Jesus
Christ:
If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this
which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea;
it shall be done.
And all this, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing,
ye shall receive.
They made no particular impression on him, but it hap-
pened that two or three days later, being Sunday, the Canon
in residence chose them for the text of his sermon. Even
if Philip had wanted to hear this it would have been im-
possible, for the boys of King’s School sit in the choir, and
the pulpit stands at the corner of the transept so that the
preacher’s back is almost turned to them. The distance also
is so great that it needs a man with a fine voice and a knowl-
edge of elocution to make himself heard in the choir; and
according to long usage the Canons of Tercanbury are cho-
sen for their learning rather than for any qualities which
might be of use in a cathedral church. But the words of the
text, perhaps because he had read them so short a while be-
fore, came clearly enough to Philip’s ears, and they seemed