SHADOWS IN THE PICTURE. 185 ©

trusts. More than thirty boys are partly under my
control. Some of them are advanced scholars, even in
branches which I have not studied; but my task is
well defined. The higher Greek and Latin classics are
taught by Barry, and the whole domestic charge falls
to his share. Oh, I wish you knew him! He is just
such a man as you could not but admire and love: so
self-forgetting, so many-sided in his tastes, so noble, so
fervid. If I ever think the Americans cold, it is not
when I am with Barry. From him it was that I first
caught the idea of what it was to be a teacher. I had
thought it dull, mechanical, and even irksome. He
made me see it to be a noble art—more noble than our
darling music—more noble than painting, sculpture,
and architecture. These work with dead materials, but
the hand of the teacher moulds the plastic soul. The
noblest cultivation of fields and gardens rears only
vegetable life ; but the teacher watches the development
of a life which is spiritual and immortal.

“ Often, dearest Lotte, have I unbosomed myself to
you about the church. You know I have sometimes
thought- seriously of being a minister of the gospel—
unworthy as I am—and, indeed, I sometimes think of
it still. But is not this also a kind of ministry? May
I not serve our blessed Redeemer, even if I pass my
life in feeding his lambs? Thus I regard it. I would
not learn to regard it otherwise. Some people here
think religion ought to be kept out of schools! Do not