Then a call had come to him, a voice had seemed to speak to his ears bidding him to lay down great possessions to follow whither Heaven should lead him.

Thomas Owen had obeyed the voice; though, owing to circumstances which need not be detailed, to do so he was obliged to renounce his succession to a very large estate, and to content himself with a younger son's portion of thirty thousand pounds and the reversion to the living which he had now held for some five years.
Then and there, with singular unanimity and despatch, his relations came to the conclusion that he was mad.

To this hour, indeed, those who stand in his place and enjoy the wealth and position that were his by right, speak of him as "poor Thomas," and mark their disapprobation of his peculiar conduct by refusing with an unvarying steadiness to subscribe even a single shilling to a missionary society.

How "poor Thomas" speaks of them in the place where he is we may wonder, but as yet we cannot know--probably with the gentle love and charity that marked his every action upon earth.

But this is by the way.
He had entered the Church, but what had he done in its shadow?
This was the question which Owen asked himself as he sat that night by the open window, arraigning his past before the judgment-seat of conscience.