{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_5362/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_5362","id":"gutenberg_5362","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5362","summary":null,"tags":["Attitude change -- Fiction","Bestsellers, American, 1895-1923","Category: American Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian ethics -- Fiction","Christian life -- Fiction","Conscience -- Religious aspects -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE INSIDE OF THE CUP\n\nBy Winston Churchill\n\n\nVolume 7.\n\nXXIII.  THE CHOICE\nXXIV.   THE VESTRY MEETS\nXXV.    \"RISE, CROWNED WITH LIGHT!\"\nXXVI.   THE CURRENT OF LIFE\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nTHE CHOICE\n\n\nI\n\nPondering over Alison's note, he suddenly recalled and verified some\nphrases which had struck him that summer on reading Harnack's celebrated\nHistory of Dogma, and around these he framed his reply. \"To act as if\nfaith in eternal life and in the living Christ was the simplest thing in\nthe world, or a dogma to which one has to submit, is irreligious. . .\nIt is Christian to pray that God would give the Spirit to make us strong\nto overcome the feelings and the doubts of nature. . . Where this\nfaith, obtained in this way, exists, it has always been supported by the\nconviction that the Man lives who brought life and immortality to light.\nTo hold fast this faith is the goal of life, for only what we consciously\nstrive for is in this matter our own. What we think we possess is very\nsoon lost.\"\n\n\"The feelings and the doubts of nature!\" The Divine Discontent, the\nstriving against the doubt that every honest soul experiences and admits.\nThus the contrast between her and these others who accepted and went\ntheir several ways was brought home to him.\n\nHe longed to talk to her, but his days were full. Yet the very thought\nof her helped to bear him up as his trials, his problems accumulated; nor\nwould he at any time have exchanged them for the former false peace which\nhad been bought (he perceived more and more clearly) at the price of\ncompromise.\n\nThe worst of these trials, perhaps, was a conspicuous article in a\nnewspaper containing a garbled account of his sermon and of the sensation\nit had produced amongst his fashionable parishioners. He had refused to\nsee the reporter, but he had been made out a hero, a socialistic champion\nof the poor. The black headlines were nauseating; and beside them, in\njuxtaposition, were pen portraits of himself and of Eldon Parr. There\nwere rumours that the banker had left the church until the recalcitrant\nrector should be driven out of it; the usual long list of Mr. Parr's\nbenefactions was included, and certain veiled paragraphs concerning his\nfinancial operations. Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Plimpton, Mr. Constable, did not\nescape,--although they, too, had refused to be interviewed . . . .\n\nThe article brought to the parish house a bevy of reporters who had to be\nfought off, and another batch of letters, many of them from ministers, in\napproval or condemnation.\n\nHis fellow-clergymen called, some to express sympathy and encouragement,\nmore of them to voice in person indignant and horrified protests. Dr.\nAnnesley of Calvary--a counterpart of whose rubicund face might have\nbeen found in the Council of Trent or in mediaeval fish-markets\n--pronounced his anathemas with his hands folded comfortably over his\nstomach, but eventually threw to the winds every vestige of his\necclesiastical dignity . . . .\n\nThen there came a note from the old bishop, who was traveling. A kindly\nnote, withal, if non-committal,--to the effect that he had received\ncertain communications, but that his physician would not permit him to\nreturn for another ten days or so. He would then be glad to see Mr.\nHolder and talk with him.\n\nWhat would the bishop do? Holder's relations with him had been more than\nfriendly, but whether the bishop's views were sufficiently liberal to\nsupport him in the extreme stand he had taken he could not surmise. For\nit meant that the bishop, too, must enter into a conflict with the first\nlayman of his diocese, of whose hospitality he had so often partaken,\nwhose contributions had been on so lordly a scale. The bishop was in his\nseventieth year, and had hitherto successfully fought any attempt to\nsupply him with an assistant,--coadjutor or suffragan.\n\nAt such times the fear grew upon Hodder that he might be recommended for\ntrial, forced to abandon his fight to free the Church from the fetters\nthat bound her: that the implacable hostility of his enemies would rob\nhim of his opportunity.\n\nThus ties were broken, many hard things were said and brought to his\nears. There were vacancies in the classes and guilds, absences that\npained him, silences that wrung him. . . .\n\nOf all the conversations he held, that with Mrs. Constable was perhaps\nthe most illuminating and distressing. As on that other occasion, when\nhe had gone to her, this visit was under the seal of confession, unknown\nto her husband. And Hodder had been taken aback, on seeing her enter his\noffice, by the very tragedy in her face--the tragedy he had momentarily\nbeheld once before. He drew up a chair for her, and when she had sat\ndown she gazed at him some moments without speaking.\n\n\"I had to come,\" she said; \"there are some things I feel I must ask you.\nFor I have been very miserable since I heard you on Sunday.\"\n\nHe nodded gently.\n\n\"I knew that you would change your views--become broader, greater. You\nmay remember that I predicted it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.\n\n\"I thought you would grow more liberal, less bigoted, if you will allow\nme to say so. But I didn't anticipate--\" she hesitated, and looked up at\nhim again.\n\n\"That I would take the extreme position I have taken,\" he assisted her.\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Hodder,\" she cried impulsively, \"was it necessary to go so far?\nand all at once. I am here not only because I am miserable, but I am\nconcerned on your account. You hurt me very much that day you came to\nme, but you made me your friend. And I wonder if you really understand\nthe terrible, bitter feeling you have aroused, the powerful enemies you\nhave made by speaking so--so unreservedly?\"\n\n\"I was prepared for it,\" he answered. \"Surely, Mrs. Constable, once I\nhave arrived at what I believe to be the truth, you would not have me\ntemporize?\"\n\nShe gave him a wan smile.\n\n\"In one respect, at least, you have not changed,\" she told him. \"I am\nafraid you are not the temporizing kind. But wasn't there,--mayn't there\nstill be a way to deal with this fearful situation? You have made it\nvery hard for us--for them. You have given them no loophole of escape.\nAnd there are many, like me, who do not wish to see your career ruined,\nMr. Hodder.\"\n\n\"Would you prefer,\" he asked, \"to see my soul destroyed? And your own?\"\n\nHer lips twitched.\n\n\"Isn't there any other way but that? Can't this transformation, which\nyou say is necessary and vital, come gradually? You carried me away as\nI listened to you, I was not myself when I came out of the church.\nBut I have been thinking ever since. Consider my husband, Mr. Hodder,\"\nher voice faltered. \"I shall not mince matters with you--I know you will\nnot pretend to misunderstand me. I have never seen him so upset since\nsince that time Gertrude was married. He is in a most cruel position.\nI confessed to you once that Mr. Parr had made for us all the money we\npossess. Everett is fond of you, but if he espouses your cause, on the\nvestry, we shall be ruined.\"\n\nHodder was greatly moved.\n\n\"It is not my cause, Mrs. Constable,\" he said.\n\n\"Surely, Christianity is not so harsh and uncompromising as that! And do\nyou quite do justice to--to some of these men? There was no one to tell\nthem the wrongs they were committing--if they were indeed wrongs. Our\ncivilization is far from perfect.\"\n\n\"The Church may have been remiss, mistaken,\" the rector replied. \"But\nthe Christianity she has taught, adulterated though it were, has never\ncondoned the acts which have become commonplace in modern finance. There\nmust have been a time, in the life of every one of these men, when they\nhad to take that first step against which their consciences revolted,\nwhen they realized that fraud and taking advantage of the ignorant and\nweak were wrong. They have deliberately preferred gratification in this\nlife to spiritual development--if indeed they believe in any future\nwhatsoever. For 'whosoever will save his life shall lose it' is as true\nto-day as it ever was. They have had their choice--they still have it.\"\n\n\"I am to blame,\" she cried. \"I drove my husband to it, I made him think\nof riches, it was I who cultivated Mr. Parr. And oh, I suppose I am\njustly punished. I have never been happy for one instant since that\nday.\"\n\nHe watched her, pityingly, as she wept. But presently she raised her\nface, wonderingly.\n\n\"You do believe in the future life after--after what you have been\nthrough?\"\n\n\"I do,\" he answered simply.\n\n\"Yes--I am sure you do. It is that, what you are, convinces me you do.\nEven the remarkable and sensible explanation you gave of it when you\ninterpreted the parable of the talents is not so powerful as the\nimpression that you yourself believe after thinking it out for yourself\n--not accepting the old explanations. And then,\" she added, with a note\nas of surprise, \"you are willing to sacrifice everything for it!\"\n\n\"And you?\" he asked. \"Cannot you, too, believe to that extent?\"\n\n\"Everything?\" she repeated. \"It would mean--poverty. No--God help me\n--I cannot face it. I have become too hard. I cannot do without the\nworld. And even if I could! Oh, you cannot know what you ask Everett,\nmy husband--I must say it, you make me tell you everything--is not free.\nHe is little better than a slave to Eldon Parr. I hate Eldon Parr,\" she\nadded, with startling inconsequence.\n\n\"If I had only known what it would lead to when I made Everett what he\nis! But I knew nothing of business, and I wanted money, position to\nsatisfy my craving at the loss of--that other thing. And now I couldn't\nchange my husband if I would. He hasn't the courage, he hasn't the\nvision. What there was of him, long ago, has been killed--and I killed\nit. He isn't--anybody, now.\"\n\nShe relapsed again into weeping.\n\n\"And then it might not mean only poverty--it might mean disgrace.\"\n\n\"Disgrace!\" the rector involuntarily took up the word.\n\n\"There are some things he has done,\" she said in a low voice, \"which he\nthought he was obliged to do which Eldon Parr made him do.\"\n\n\"But Mr. Parr, too--?\" Hodder began.\n\n\"Oh, it was to shield Eldon Parr. They could never be traced to him.\nAnd if they ever came out, it would kill my husband. Tell me,\" she\nimplored, \"what can I do? What shall I do? You are responsible. You\nhave made me more bitterly unhappy than ever.\"\n\n\"Are you willing,\" he asked, after a moment, \"to make the supreme\nrenunciation? to face poverty, and perhaps disgrace, to save your soul\nand others?\"\n\n\"And--others?\"\n\n\"Yes. Your sacrifice would not, could not be in vain. Otherwise I\nshould be merely urging on you the individualism which you once advocated\nwith me.\"\n\n\"Renunciation.\" She pronounced the word questioningly. \"Can\nChristianity really mean that--renunciation of the world? Must we take\nit in the drastic sense of the Church of the early centuries-the Church\nof the Martyrs?\"\n\n\"Christianity demands all of us, or nothing,\" he replied. \"But the false\ninterpretation of renunciation of the early Church has cast its blight on\nChristianity even to our day. Oriental asceticism, Stoicism, Philo and\nother influences distorted Christ's meaning. Renunciation does not mean\nasceticism, retirement from the world, a denial of life. And the early\nChristian, since he was not a citizen, since he took the view that this\nmortal existence was essentially bad and kept his eyes steadfastly fixed\non another, was the victim at once of false philosophies and of the\nliteral messianic prophecies of the Jews, which were taken over with\nChristianity. The earthly kingdom which was to come was to be the result\nof some kind of a cataclysm. Personally, I believe our Lord merely used\nthe Messianic literature as a convenient framework for his spiritual\nKingdom of heaven, and that the Gospels misinterpret his meaning on this\npoint.\n\n\"Renunciation is not the withdrawal from, the denial of life, but the\nfulfilment of life, the submission to the divine will and guidance in\norder that our work may be shown us. Renunciation is the assumption,\nat once, of heavenly and earthly citizenship, of responsibility for\nourselves and our fellow-men. It is the realization that the other\nworld, the inner, spiritual world, is here, now, and that the soul may\ndwell in it before death, while the body and mind work for the coming of\nwhat may be called the collective kingdom. Life looked upon in that way\nis not bad, but good,--not meaningless, but luminous.\"\n\nShe had listened hungrily, her eyes fixed upon his face.\n\n\"And for me?\" she questioned.\n\n\"For you,\" he answered, leaning forward and speaking with a conviction\nthat shook her profoundly, \"if you make the sacrifice of your present\nunhappiness, of your misery, all will be revealed. The labour which you\nhave shirked, which is now hidden from you, will be disclosed, you will\njustify your existence by taking your place as an element of the\ncommunity. You will be able to say of yourself, at last, 'I am of use.'\"\n\n\"You mean--social work?\"\n\nThe likeness of this to Mrs. Plimpton's question struck him. She had\ncalled it \"charity.\" How far had they wandered in their teaching from\nthe Revelation of the Master, since it was as new and incomprehensible to\nthese so-called Christians as to Nicodemus himself!\n\n\"All Christian work is social, Mrs. Constable, but it is founded on love.\n'Thou shaft love thy neighbour as thyself.' You hold your own soul\nprecious, since it is the shrine of God. And for that reason you hold\nequally precious your neighbour's soul. Love comes first, as revelation,\nas imparted knowledge, as the divine gist of autonomy--self-government.\nAnd then one cannot help working, socially, at the task for which we are\nmade by nature most efficient. And in order to discover what that task\nis, we must wait.\"\n\n\"Why did not some one tell me this, when I was young?\" she asked--not\nspeaking to him. \"It seems so simple.\"\n\n\"It is simple. The difficult thing is to put it into practice--the most\ndifficult thing in the world. Both courage and faith are required, faith\nthat is content to trust as to the nature of the reward. It is the\nwisdom of foolishness. Have you the courage?\"\n\nShe pressed her hands together.\n\n\"Alone--perhaps I should have. I don't know. But my husband!\nI was able to influence him to his destruction, and now I am powerless.\nDarkness has closed around me. He would not--he will not listen to me.\"\n\n\"You have tried?\"\n\n\"I have attempted to talk to him, but the whole of my life contradicts my\nwords. He cannot see me except as, the woman who drove him into making\nmoney. Sometimes I think he hates me.\"\n\nHodder recalled, as his eyes rested on her compassionately, the\nsufferings of that other woman in Dalton Street.\n\n\"Would you have me desert him--after all these years?\" she whispered.\n\"I often think he would be happier, even now.\"\n\n\"I would have you do nothing save that which God himself will reveal to\nyou. Go home, go into the church and pray--pray for knowledge. I think\nyou will find that you are held responsible for your husband. Pray that\nthat which you have broken, you may mend again.\"\n\n\"Do you think there is a chance?\"\n\nHodder made a gesture.\n\n\"God alone can judge as to the extent of his punishments.\"\n\nShe got to her feet, wearily.\n\n\"I feel no hope--I feel no courage, but--I will try. I see what you\nmean--that my punishment is my powerlessness.\"\n\nHe bent his head.\n\n\"You are so strong--perhaps you can help me.\"\n\n\"I shall always be ready,\" he replied.\n\nHe escorted her down the steps to the dark blue brougham with upstanding,\nchestnut horses which was waiting at the curb. But Mrs. Constable turned\nto the footman, who held open the door.\n\n\"You may stay here awhile,\" she said to him, and gave Hodder her hand....\n\nShe went into the church . . . .\n\n\n\nII\n\nAsa Waring and his son-in-law, Phil Goodrich, had been to see Hodder on\nthe subject of the approaching vestry meeting, and both had gone away not\na little astonished and impressed by the calmness with which the rector\nlooked forward to the conflict. Others of his parishioners, some of whom\nwere more discreet in their expressions of sympathy, were no less\nsurprised by his attitude; and even his theological adversaries, such as\nGordon Atterbury, paid him a reluctant tribute. Thanks, perhaps, to the\nnewspaper comments as much as to any other factor, in the minds of those\nof all shades of opinion in the parish the issue had crystallized into a\nduel between the rector and Eldon Parr. Bitterly as they resented the\nglare of publicity into which St. John's had been dragged, the first\nlayman of the diocese was not beloved; and the fairer-minded of Hodder's\nopponents, though appalled, were forced to admit in their hearts that the\nmethods by which Mr. Parr had made his fortune and gained his ascendency\nwould not bear scrutiny . . . . Some of them were disturbed, indeed,\nby the discovery that there had come about in them, by imperceptible\ndegrees, in the last few years a new and critical attitude towards the\nways of modern finance: moat of them had an uncomfortable feeling that\nHodder was somehow right,--a feeling which they sought to stifle when\nthey reflected upon the consequences of facing it. For this would mean\na disagreeable shaking up of their own lives. Few of them were in a\nposition whence they might cast stones at Eldon Parr . . . .\n\nWhat these did not grasp was the fact that that which they felt stirring\nwithin them was the new and spiritual product of the dawning twentieth\ncentury--the Social Conscience. They wished heartily that the new rector\nwho had developed this disquieting personality would peacefully resign\nand leave them to the former, even tenor of their lives. They did not\nfor one moment doubt the outcome of his struggle with Eldon Parr. The\ngreat banker was known to be relentless, his name was synonymous with\nvictory. And yet, paradoxically, Hodder compelled their inner sympathy\nand admiration! . . .\n\nSome of them, who did not attempt peremptorily to choke the a processes\nmade the startling discovery that they were not, after all, so shocked by\nhis doctrines as they had at first supposed. The trouble was that they\ncould not continue to listen to him, as formerly, with comfort.... One\nthing was certain, that they had never expected to look forward to a\nvestry meeting with such breathless interest and anxiety. This clergyman\nhad suddenly accomplished the surprising feat of reviving the Church as a\nburning, vital factor in the life of the community! He had discerned her\nenemy, and defied his power . . . .\n\nAs for Hodder, so absorbed had he been by his experiences, so wrung by\nthe human contacts, the personal problems which he had sought to enter,\nthat he had actually given no thought to the battle before him until\nthe autumn afternoon, heavy with smoke, had settled down into darkness.\nThe weather was damp and cold, and he sat musing on the ordeal now\nabruptly confronting him before his study fire when he heard a step\nbehind him. He turned to recognize, by the glow of the embers, the heavy\nfigure of Nelson Langmaid.\n\n\"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Hodder,\" he said. \"The janitor said you\nwere in, and your door is open.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" replied the rector, rising. As he stood for a moment\nfacing the lawyer, the thought of their friendship, and how it had begun\nin the little rectory overlooking the lake at Bremerton, was uppermost in\nhis mind,--yes, and the memory of many friendly, literary discussions in\nthe same room where they now stood, of pleasant dinners at Langmaid's\nhouse in the West End, when the two of them had often sat talking until\nlate into the nights.\n\n\"I must seem very inhospitable,\" said Hodder. \"I'll light the lamp--it's\npleasanter than the electric light.\"\n\nThe added illumination at first revealed the lawyer in his familiar\naspect, the broad shoulders, the big, reddish beard, the dome-like head,\n--the generous person that seemed to radiate scholarly benignity, peace,\nand good-will. But almost instantly the rector became aware of a new and\ntroubled, puzzled glance from behind the round spectacles. . .\"\n\n\"I thought I'd drop in a moment on my way up town--\" he began. And the\nnote of uncertainty in his voice, too, was new. Hodder drew towards the\nfire the big chair in which it had been Langmaid's wont to sit, and\nperhaps it was the sight of this operation that loosed the lawyer's\ntongue.\n\n\"Confound it, Hodder!\" he exclaimed, \"I like you--I always have liked\nyou. And you've got a hundred times the ability of the average\nclergyman. Why in the world did you have to go and make all this\ntrouble?\"\n\nBy so characteristic a remark Hodder was both amused and moved. It\nrevealed so perfectly the point of view and predicament of the lawyer,\nand it was also an expression of an affection which the rector cordially,\nreturned . . . . Before answering, he placed his visitor in the\nchair, and the deliberation of the act was a revelation of the\nunconscious poise of the clergyman. The spectacle of this self-command\non the brink of such a crucial event as the vestry meeting had taken\nLangmaid aback more than he cared to show. He had lost the old sense of\ncomradeship, of easy equality; and he had the odd feeling of dealing with\na new man, at once familiar and unfamiliar, who had somehow lifted\nhimself out of the everyday element in which they heretofore had met.\nThe clergyman had contrived to step out of his, Langmaid's, experience:\nhad actually set him--who all his life had known no difficulty in dealing\nwith men--to groping for a medium of communication . . . .\n\nHodder sat down on the other side of the fireplace. He, too, seemed to\nbe striving for a common footing.\n\n\"It was a question of proclaiming the truth when at last I came to see\nit, Langmaid. I could not help doing what I did. Matters of policy,\nof a false consideration for individuals could not enter into it.\nIf this were not so, I should gladly admit that you had a just grievance,\na peculiar right to demand why I had not remained the strictly orthodox\nperson whom you induced to come here. You had every reason to\ncongratulate yourself that you were getting what you doubtless would call\na safe man.\"\n\n\"I'll admit I had a twinge of uneasiness after I came home,\" Langmaid\nconfessed.\n\nHodder smiled at his frankness.\n\n\"But that disappeared.\"\n\n\"Yes, it disappeared. You seemed to suit 'em so perfectly. I'll own up,\nHodder, that I was a little hurt that you did not come and talk to me\njust before you took the extraordinary--before you changed your\nopinions.\"\n\n\"Would it have done any good?\" asked the rector, gently. \"Would you\nhave agreed with me any better than you do now? I am perfectly willing,\nif you wish, to discuss with you any views of mine which you may not\nindorse. And it would make me very happy, I assure you, if I could bring\nyou to look upon the matter as I do.\"\n\nThis was a poser. And whether it were ingenuous, or had in it an element\nof the scriptural wisdom of the serpent, Langmaid could not have said.\nAs a lawyer, he admired it.\n\n\"I wasn't in church, as usual,--I didn't hear the sermon,\" he replied.\n\"And I never could make head or tail of theology--I always told you that.\nWhat I deplore, Hodder, is that you've contrived to make a hornets' nest\nout of the most peaceful and contented congregation in America. Couldn't\nyou have managed to stick to religion instead of getting mixed up with\nsocialism?\"\n\n\"So you have been given the idea that my sermon was socialistic?\" the\nrector said.\n\n\"Socialistic and heretical,--it seems. Of course I'm not much of an\nauthority on heresy, but they claim that you went out of your way to\nknock some of their most cherished and sacred beliefs in the head.\"\n\n\"But suppose I have come to the honest conclusion that in the first\nplace these so-called cherished beliefs have no foundation in fact,\nand no influence on the lives of the persons who cherished them, no real\nconnection with Christianity? What would you have me do, as a man?\nContinue to preach them for the sake of the lethargic peace of which\nyou speak? leave the church paralyzed, as I found it?\"\n\n\"Paralyzed! You've got the most influential people in the city.\"\n\nHodder regarded him for a while without replying.\n\n\"So has the Willesden Club,\" he said.\n\nLangmaid laughed a little, uncomfortably.\n\n\"If Christianity, as one of the ancient popes is said to have remarked,\nwere merely a profitable fable,\" the rector continued, \"there might be\nsomething in your contention that St. John's, as a church, had reached\nthe pinnacle of success. But let us ignore the spiritual side of this\nmatter as non-vital, and consider it from the practical side. We have\nthe most influential people in the city, but we have not their children.\nThat does not promise well for the future. The children get more profit\nout of the country clubs. And then there is another question: is it\ngoing to continue to be profitable? Is it as profitable now as it was,\nsay, twenty years ago?\n\n\"You've got out of my depth,\" said Nelson Langmaid.\n\n\"I'll try to explain. As a man of affairs, I think you will admit, if\nyou reflect, that the return of St. John's, considering the large amount\nof money invested, is scarcely worth considering. And I am surprised\nthat as astute a man as Mr. Pair has not been able to see this long ago.\nIf we clear all the cobwebs away, what is the real function of this\nchurch as at present constituted? Why this heavy expenditure to maintain\nreligious services for a handful of people? Is it not, when we come down\nto facts, an increasingly futile effort to bring the influences of\nreligion--of superstition, if you will--to bear on the so-called lower\nclasses in order that they may remain contented with their lot, with that\nstation and condition in the world where--it is argued--it has pleased\nGod to call them? If that were not so, in my opinion there are very few\nof the privileged classes who would invest a dollar in the Church. And\nthe proof of it is that the moment a clergyman raises his voice to\nproclaim the true message of Christianity they are up in arms with the\ncry of socialism. They have the sense to see that their privileges are\nimmediately threatened.\n\n\"Looking at it from the financial side, it would be cheaper for them to\nclose up their churches. It is a mere waste of time and money, because\nthe influence on their less fortunate brethren in a worldly sense has\ndwindled to nothing. Few of the poor come near their churches in these\ndays. The profitable fable is almost played out.\"\n\nHodder had spoken without bitterness, yet his irony was by no means lost\non the lawyer. Langmaid, if the truth be told, found himself for the\nmoment in the unusual predicament of being at a loss, for the rector had\nput forward with more or less precision the very cynical view which he\nhimself had been clever enough to evolve.\n\n\"Haven't they the right,\" he asked, somewhat lamely to demand the kind of\nreligion they pay for?\"\n\n\"Provided you don't call it religion,\" said the rector.\n\nLangmaid smiled in spite of himself.\n\n\"See here, Hodder,\" he said, \"I've always confessed frankly that I knew\nlittle or nothing about religion. I've come here this evening as your\nfriend, without authority from anybody,\" he added significantly, \"to see\nif this thing couldn't somehow be adjusted peaceably, for your sake as\nwell as others'. Come, you must admit there's a grain of justice in the\ncontention against you. When I went on to Bremerton to get you I had no\nreal reason for supposing that these views would develop. I made a\ncontract with you in all good faith.\"\n\n\"And I with you,\" answered the rector. \"Perhaps you do not realize,\nLangmaid, what has been the chief factor in developing these views.\"\n\nThe lawyer was silent, from caution.\n\n\"I must be frank with you. It was the discovery that Mr. Parr and others\nof my chief parishioners were so far from being Christians as to indulge,\nwhile they supported the Church of Christ, in operations like that of the\nConsolidated Tractions Company, wronging their fellow-men and condemning\nthem to misery and hate. And that you, as a lawyer, used your talents to\nmake that operation possible.\"\n\n\"Hold on!\" cried Langmaid, now plainly agitated. \"You have no right--you\ncan know nothing of that affair. You do not understand business.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid,\" replied the rector, sadly, \"that I understand one side of\nit only too well.\"\n\n\"The Church has no right to meddle outside of her sphere, to dictate to\npolitics and business.\"\n\n\"Her sphere,\" said Holder,--is the world. If she does not change the\nworld by sending out Christians into it, she would better close her\ndoors.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't intend to quarrel with you, Holder. I suppose it can't be\nhelped that we look at these things differently, and I don't intend to\nenter into a defence of business. It would take too long, and it\nwouldn't help any.\" He got to his feet. \"Whatever happens, it won't\ninterfere with our personal friendship, even if you think me a highwayman\nand I think you a--\"\n\n\"A fanatic,\" Holder supplied. He had risen, too, and stood, with a smile\non his face, gazing at the lawyer with an odd scrutiny.\n\n\"An idealist, I was going to say,\" Langmaid answered, returning the\nsmile, \"I'll admit that we need them in the world. It's only when one\nof them gets in the gear-box . . . .\"\n\nThe rector laughed. And thus they stood, facing each other.\n\n\"Langmaid,\" Holder asked, \"don't you ever get tired and disgusted with\nthe Juggernaut car?\"\n\nThe big lawyer continued to smile, but a sheepish, almost boyish\nexpression came over his face. He had not credited the clergyman with\nso much astuteness.\n\n\"Business, nowadays, is--business, Holder. The Juggernaut car claims us\nall. It has become-if you will permit me to continue to put my similes\ninto slang--the modern band wagon. And we lawyers have to get on it, or\nfall by the wayside.\"\n\nHolder stared into the fire.\n\n\"I appreciate your motive in coming here,\" he said, at length, \"and I do\nyou the justice of believing it was friendly, that the fact that you are,\nin a way, responsible for me to--to the congregation of St. John's did\nnot enter into it. I realize that I have made matters particularly\nawkward for you. You have given them in me, and in good faith, something\nthey didn't bargain for. You haven't said so, but you want me to resign.\nOn the one hand, you don't care to see me tilting at the windmills, or,\nbetter, drawing down on my head the thunderbolts of your gods. On the\nother hand, you are just a little afraid for your gods. If the question\nin dispute were merely an academic one, I'd accommodate you at once. But\nI can't. I've thought it all out, and I have made up my mind that it is\nmy clear duty to remain here and, if I am strong enough, wrest this\nchurch from the grip of Eldon Parr and the men whom he controls.\n\n\"I am speaking plainly, and I understand the situation thoroughly. You\nwill probably tell me, as others have done, that no one has ever opposed\nEldon Parr who has not been crushed. I go in with my eyes open, I am\nwilling to be crushed, if necessary. You have come here to warn me, and\nI appreciate your motive. Now I am going to warn you, in all sincerity\nand friendship. I may be beaten, I may be driven out. But the victory\nwill be mine nevertheless. Eldon Parr and the men who stand with him in\nthe struggle will never recover from the blow I shall give them. I shall\nleave them crippled because I have the truth on my side, and the truth\nis irresistible. And they shall not be able to injure me permanently.\nAnd you, I regret deeply to say, will be hurt, too. I beg you, for no\nselfish reason, to consider again the part you intend to play in this\naffair.\"\n\nSuch was the conviction, such the unlooked-for fire with which the rector\nspoke that Langmaid was visibly shaken and taken aback in spite of\nhimself.\n\n\"Do you mean,\" he demanded, when he had caught his breath, \"that you\nintend to attack us publicly?\"\n\n\"Is that the only punishment you can conceive of?\" the rector asked. The\nreproach in his voice was in itself a denial.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Hodder,\" said the lawyer, quickly. \"And I am sure\nyou honestly believe what you say, but--\"\n\n\"In your heart you, too, believe it, Langmaid. The retribution has\nalready begun. Nevertheless you will go on--for a while.\" He held out\nhis hand, which Langmaid took mechanically. \"I bear you no ill-will.\nI am sorry that you cannot yet see with sufficient clearness to save\nyourself.\"\n\nLangmaid turned and picked up his hat and stick and left the room without\nanother word. The bewildered, wistful look which had replaced the\nordinarily benign and cheerful expression haunted Hodder long after\nthe lawyer had gone. It was the look of a man who has somehow lost\nhis consciousness of power.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nTHE VESTRY MEETS\n\nAt nine o'clock that evening Hodder stood alone in the arched vestry\nroom, and the sight of the heavy Gothic chairs ranged about the long\ntable brought up memories of comfortable, genial meetings prolonged by\nchat and banter.... The noise of feet, of subdued voices beside the coat\nroom in the corridor, aroused him. All of the vestry would seem to have\narrived at once.\n\nHe regarded them with a detached curiosity as they entered, reading them\nwith a new insight. The trace of off-handedness in Mr. Plimpton's former\ncordiality was not lost upon him--an intimation that his star had set.\nMr. Plimpton had seen many breaches healed--had healed many himself. But\nhe had never been known as a champion of lost causes.\n\n\"Well, here we are, Mr. Hodder, on the stroke,\" he remarked.\n\"As a vestry, I think we're entitled to the first prize for promptness.\nHow about it, Everett?\"\n\nEverett Constable was silent.\n\n\"Good evening, Mr. Hodder,\" he said. He did not offer to shake hands,\nas Mr. Plimpton had done, but sat down at the far end of the table.\nHe looked tired and worn; sick, the rector thought, and felt a sudden\nswelling of compassion for the pompous little man whose fibre was not\nas tough as that of these other condottieri: as Francis Ferguson's, for\ninstance, although his soft hand and pink and white face framed in the\nblack whiskers would seem to belie any fibre whatever.\n\nGordon Atterbury hemmed and hawed,--\"Ah, Mr. Hodder,\" and seated himself\nbeside Mr. Constable, in a chair designed to accommodate a portly bishop.\nBoth of them started nervously as Asa Waring, holding his head high, as a\nman should who has kept his birthright, went directly to the rector.\n\n\"I'm glad to see you, Mr. Hodder,\" he said, and turning defiantly,\nsurveyed the room. There was an awkward silence. Mr. Plimpton edged\na little nearer. The decree might have gone forth for Mr. Hodder's\ndestruction, but Asa Waring was a man whose displeasure was not to be\nlightly incurred.\n\n\"What's this I hear about your moving out of Hamilton Place, Mr. Waring?\nYou'd better come up and take the Spaulding lot, in Waverley, across from\nus.\"\n\n\"I am an old man, Mr. Plimpton,\" Asa Waring replied. \"I do not move as\neasily as some other people in these days.\"\n\nEverett Constable produced his handkerchief and rubbed his nose\nviolently. But Mr. Plimpton was apparently undaunted.\n\n\"I have always said,\" he observed, \"that there was something very fine in\nyour sticking to that neighbourhood after your friends had gone. Here's\nPhil!\"\n\nPhil Goodrich looked positively belligerent, and as he took his stand\non the other side of Hodder his father-in-law smiled at him grimly.\nMr. Goodrich took hold of the rector's arm.\n\n\"I missed one or two meetings last spring, Mr. Hodder,\" he said, \"but I'm\ngoing to be on hand after this. My father, I believe, never missed a\nvestry meeting in his life. Perhaps that was because they used to hold\nmost of 'em at his house.\"\n\n\"And serve port and cigars, I'm told,\" Mr. Plimpton put in.\n\n\"That was an inducement, Wallis, I'll admit,\" answered Phil. \"But there\nare even greater inducements now.\"\n\nIn view of Phil Goodrich's well-known liking for a fight, this was too\npointed to admit of a reply, but Mr. Plimpton was spared the attempt by\nthe entrance of. Nelson Langmaid. The lawyer, as he greeted them,\nseemed to be preoccupied, nor did he seek to relieve the tension with\nhis customary joke. A few moments of silence followed, when Eldon Parr\nwas seen to be standing in the doorway, surveying them.\n\n\"Good evening, gentlemen,\" he said coldly, and without more ado went to\nhis customary chair, and sat down in it. Immediately followed a scraping\nof other chairs. There was a dominating quality about the man not to be\ngainsaid.\n\nThe rector called the meeting to order . . . .\n\nDuring the routine business none of the little asides occurred which\nproduce laughter. Every man in the room was aware of the intensity of\nEldon Parr's animosity, and yet he betrayed it neither by voice, look,\nor gesture. There was something uncanny in this self-control, this sang\nfroid with which he was wont to sit at boards waiting unmoved for the\ntime when he should draw his net about his enemies, and strangle them\nwithout pity. It got on Langmaid's nerves--hardened as he was to it.\nHe had seen many men in that net; some had struggled, some had taken\ntheir annihilation stoically; honest merchants, freebooters, and\nbrigands. Most of them had gone out, with their families, into that\nprecarious border-land of existence in which the to-morrows are ever\ndreaded.\n\nYet here, somehow, was a different case. Langmaid found himself going\nback to the days when his mother had taken him to church, and he could\nnot bear to look at, Hodder. Since six o'clock that afternoon--had his\ncompanions but known it--he had passed through one of the worst periods\nof his existence. . . .\n\nAfter the regular business had been disposed of a brief interval was\nallowed, for the sake of decency, to ensue. That Eldon Parr would not\nlead the charge in person was a foregone conclusion. Whom, then, would\nhe put forward? For obvious reasons, not Wallis Plimpton or Langmaid,\nnor Francis Ferguson. Hodder found his, glance unconsciously fixed upon\nEverett Constable, who, moved nervously and slowly pushed back his chair.\nHe was called upon, in this hour and in the church his father had helped\nto found, to make the supreme payment for the years of financial\nprosperity. Although a little man, with his shoulders thrown back and\nhis head high, he generally looked impressive when he spoke, and his fine\nfeatures and clear-cut English contributed to the effect. But now his\nface was strained, and his voice seemed to lack command as he bowed and\nmentioned the rector's name. Eldon Parr sat back.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" Mr. Constable began, \"I feel it my duty to say something\nthis evening, something that distresses me. Like some of you who are\nhere present, I have been on this vestry for many years, and my father\nwas on it before me. I was brought up under Dr. Gilman, of whom I need\nnot speak. All here, except our present rector, knew him. This church,\nSt. John's, has been a part--a--large part--of my life. And anything\nthat seems to touch its welfare, touches me.\n\n\"When Dr. Gilman died, after so many years of faithful service, we faced\na grave problem,--that of obtaining a young man of ability, an active man\nwho would be able to assume the responsibilities of a large and growing\nparish, and at the same time carry on its traditions, precious to us all;\none who believed in and preached, I need scarcely add, the accepted\ndoctrines of the Church, which we have been taught to think are sacred\nand necessary to salvation. And in the discovery of the Reverend Mr.\nHodder, we had reason to congratulate ourselves and the parish. He was\nall that we had hoped for, and more. His sermons were at once a pleasure\nand an instruction.\n\n\"I wish to make it clear,\" he continued, \"that in spite of the pain Mr.\nHodder's words of last Sunday have given me, I respect and honour him\nstill, and wish him every success. But, gentlemen, I think it is plain\nto all of you that he has changed his religious convictions. As to the\ncauses through which that change has come about, I do not pretend to\nknow. To say the least, the transition is a startling one, one for which\nsome of us were totally unprepared. To speak restrainedly, it was a\nshock--a shock which I shall remember as long as I live.\n\n\"I need not go into the doctrinal question here, except to express my\nopinion that the fundamental facts of our religion were contradicted.\nAnd we have also to consider the effect of this preaching on coming\ngenerations for whom we are responsible. There are, no doubt, other\nfields for Mr. Hodder's usefulness. But I think it may safely be taken\nas a principle that this parish has the right to demand from the pulpit\nthat orthodox teaching which suits it, and to which it has been\naccustomed. And I venture further to give it as my opinion--to put it\nmildly that others have been as disturbed and shocked as I. I have seen\nmany, talked with many, since Sunday. For these reasons, with much\nsorrow and regret, I venture to suggest to the vestry that Mr. Hodder\nresign as our rector. And I may add what I believe to be the feeling\nof all present, that we have nothing but good will for him, although\nwe think we might have been informed of what he intended to do.\n\n\"And that in requesting him to resign we are acting for his own good as\nwell as our own, and are thus avoiding a situation which threatens to\nbecome impossible,--one which would bring serious reflection on him and\ncalamity on the church. We already, in certain articles in the\nnewspapers, have had an indication of the intolerable notoriety we may\nexpect, although I hold Mr. Hodder innocent in regard to those articles.\nI am sure he will have the good sense to see this situation as I see it,\nas the majority of the parish see it.\"\n\nMr. Constable sat down, breathing hard. He had not looked at the rector\nduring the whole of his speech, nor at Eldon Parr. There was a heavy\nsilence, and then Philip Goodrich rose, square, clean-cut, aggressive.\n\n\"I, too, gentlemen, have had life-long association with this church,\" he\nbegan deliberately. \"And for Mr. Hodder's sake I am going to give you a\nlittle of my personal history, because I think it typical of thousands of\nmen of my age all over this country. It was nobody's fault, perhaps,\nthat I was taught that the Christian religion depended on a certain\nseries of nature miracles and a chain of historical events, and when I\nwent East to school I had more of this same sort of instruction. I have\nnever, perhaps, been overburdened with intellect, but the time arrived\nnevertheless when I began to think for myself. Some of the older boys\nwent once, I remember, to the rector of the school--a dear old man--and\nfrankly stated our troubles. To use a modern expression, he stood pat on\neverything. I do not say it was a consciously criminal act, he probably\nsaw no way out himself. At any rate, he made us all agnostics at one\nstroke.\n\n\"What I learned in college of science and history and philosophy merely\nconfirmed me in my agnosticism. As a complete system for the making of\natheists and materialists, I commend the education which I received. If\nthere is any man here who believes religion to be an essential factor in\nlife, I ask him to think of his children or grandchildren before he comes\nforward to the support of Mr. Constable.\n\n\"In that sermon which he preached last Sunday, Mr. Hodder, for the first\ntime in my life, made Christianity intelligible to me. I want him to\nknow it. And there are other men and women in that congregation who\nfeel as I do. Gentlemen, there is nothing I would not give to have had\nChristianity put before me in that simple and inspiring way when I was\na boy. And in my opinion St. John's is more fortunate to-day than it\never has been in its existence. Mr. Hodder should have an unanimous\ntestimonial of appreciation from this vestry for his courage. And if the\nvote requesting him to resign prevails, I venture to predict that there\nis not a man on this vestry who will not live to regret it.\"\n\nPhil Goodrich glared at Eldon Parr, who remained unmoved.\n\n\"Permit me to add,\" he said, \"that this controversy, in other respects\nthan doctrine, is more befitting to the Middle Ages than to the twentieth\ncentury, when this Church and other denominations are passing resolutions\nin their national conventions with a view to unity and freedom of\nbelief.\"\n\nMr. Langmaid, Mr. Plimpton, and Mr. Constable sat still. Mr. Ferguson\nmade no move. It was Gordon Atterbury who rushed into the breach, and\nproved that the extremists are allies of doubtful value.\n\nHe had, apparently, not been idle since Sunday, and was armed cap-a pie\nwith time-worn arguments that need not be set down. All of which went to\nshow that Mr. Goodrich had not referred to the Middle Ages in vain. For\nGordon Atterbury was a born school-man. But he finished by declaring, at\nthe end of twenty minutes (much as he regretted the necessity of saying\nit), that Mr. Hodder's continuance as rector would mean the ruin of the\nchurch in which all present took such a pride. That the great majority\nof its members would never submit to what was so plainly heresy.\n\nIt was then that Mr. Plimpton gathered courage to pour oil on the waters.\nThere was nothing, in his opinion, he remarked smilingly, in his function\nas peacemaker, to warrant anything but the most friendly interchange of\nviews. He was second to none in his regard for Mr. Hodder, in his\nadmiration for a man who had the courage of his convictions. He had not\nthe least doubt that Mr. Hodder did not desire to remain in the parish\nwhen it was so apparent that the doctrines which he now preached were not\nacceptable to most of those who supported the church. And he added (with\nsublime magnanimity) that he wished Mr. Hodder the success which he was\nsure he deserved, and gave him every assurance of his friendship.\n\nAsa Waring was about to rise, when he perceived that Hodder himself was\non his feet. And the eyes of every man, save one, were fixed on him\nirresistibly. The rector seemed unaware of it. It was Philip Goodrich\nwho remarked to his father-in-law, as they walked home afterwards, of the\nsense he had had at that moment that there were just two men in the\nroom,--Hodder and Eldon Parr. All the rest were ciphers; all had lost,\nmomentarily, their feelings of partisanship and were conscious only of\nthese two intense, radiating, opposing centres of force; and no man,\noddly enough, could say which was the stronger. They seemingly met on\nequal terms. There could not be the slightest doubt that the rector did\nnot mean to yield, and yet they might have been puzzled if they had asked\nthemselves how they had read the fact in his face or manner. For he\nbetrayed neither anger nor impatience.\n\nNo more did the financier reveal his own feelings. He still sat back in\nhis chair, unmoved, in apparent contemplation. The posture was familiar\nto Langmaid.\n\nWould he destroy, too, this clergyman? For the first time in his life,\nand as he looked at Hodder, the lawyer wondered. Hodder did not defend\nhimself, made no apologies. Christianity was not a collection of\ndoctrines, he reminded them,--but a mode of life. If anything were clear\nto him, it was that the present situation was not, with the majority of\nthem, a matter of doctrines, but of unwillingness to accept the message\nand precept of Jesus Christ, and lead Christian lives. They had made use\nof the doctrines as a stalking-horse.\n\nThere was a stir at this, and Hodder paused a moment and glanced around\nthe table. But no one interrupted.\n\nHe was fully aware of his rights, and he had no intention of resigning.\nTo resign would be to abandon the work for which he was responsible, not\nto them, but to God. And he was perfectly willing--nay, eager to defend\nhis Christianity before any ecclesiastical court, should the bishop\ndecide that a court was necessary. The day of freedom, of a truer vision\nwas at hand, the day of Christian unity on the vital truths, and no\nbetter proof of it could be brought forward than the change in him.\nIn his ignorance and blindness he had hitherto permitted compromise, but\nhe would no longer allow those who made only an outward pretence of being\nChristians to direct the spiritual affairs of St. John's, to say what\nshould and what should not be preached. This was to continue to paralyze\nthe usefulness of the church, to set at naught her mission, to alienate\nthose who most had need of her, who hungered and thirsted after\nrighteousness, and went away unsatisfied.\n\nHe had hardly resumed his seat when Everett Constable got up again. He\nremarked, somewhat unsteadily, that to prolong the controversy would be\nuseless and painful to all concerned, and he infinitely regretted the\nnecessity of putting his suggestion that the rector resign in the form of\na resolution . . . . The vote was taken. Six men raised their hands\nin favour of his resignation--Nelson Langmaid among them: two, Asa Waring\nand Philip Goodrich, were against it. After announcing the result,\nHodder rose.\n\n\"For the reason I have stated, gentlemen, I decline to resign,\" he said.\n\"I stand upon my canonical rights.\"\n\nFrancis Ferguson arose, his voice actually trembling with anger. There\nis something uncanny in the passion of a man whose life has been ordered\nby the inexorable rules of commerce, who has been wont to decide all\nquestions from the standpoint of dollars and cents. If one of his own\nwax models had suddenly become animated, the effect could not have been\nmore startling.\n\nIn the course of this discussion, he declared, Mr. Hodder had seen fit to\nmake grave and in his opinion unwarranted charges concerning the lives of\nsome, if not all, of the gentlemen who sat here. It surprised him that\nthese remarks had not been resented, but he praised a Christian\nforbearance on the part of his colleagues which he was unable to achieve.\nHe had no doubt that their object had been to spare Mr. Hodder's feelings\nas much as possible, but Mr. Hodder had shown no disposition to spare\ntheir own. He had outraged them, Mr. Ferguson thought,--wantonly so.\nHe had made these preposterous and unchristian charges an excuse for his\ndetermination to remain in a position where his usefulness had ceased.\n\nNo one, unfortunately, was perfect in this life,--not even Mr. Hodder.\nHe, Francis Ferguson, was far from claiming to be so. But he believed\nthat this arraignment of the men who stood highest in the city for\ndecency, law, and order, who supported the Church, who revered its\ndoctrines, who tried to live Christian lives, who gave their time and\ntheir money freely to it and to charities, that this arraignment was an\narrogant accusation and affront to be repudiated. He demanded that Mr.\nHodder be definite. If he had any charges to make, let him make them\nhere and now.\n\nThe consternation, the horror which succeeded such a stupid and\nunexpected tactical blunder on the part of the usually astute\nMr. Ferguson were felt rather than visually discerned. The atmosphere\nmight have been described as panicky. Asa Waring and Phil Goodrich\nsmiled as Wallis Plimpton, after a moment's hush, scrambled to his feet,\nhis face pale, his customary easiness and nonchalance now the result of\nan obvious effort. He, too, tried to smile, but swallowed instead as he\nremembered his property in Dalton Street . . . . Nelson Langmaid\nsmiled, in spite of himself. . . Mr. Plimpton implored his\nfellow-members not to bring personalities into the debate, and he was\naware all the while of the curious, pitying expression of the rector. He\nbreathed a sigh of relief at the opening words of Hodder, who followed\nhim.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" he said, \"I have no intention of being personal, even by\nunanimous consent. But if Mr. Ferguson will come to me after this\nmeeting I shall have not the least objection to discussing this matter\nwith him in so far as he himself is concerned. I can only assure you\nnow that I have not spoken without warrant.\"\n\nThere was, oddly enough, no acceptance of this offer by Mr. Ferguson.\nAnother silence ensued, broken, at last, by a voice for which they had\nall been unconsciously waiting; a voice which, though unemotional, cold,\nand matter-of-fact, was nevertheless commanding, and long accustomed to\nspeak with an overwhelming authority. Eldon Parr did not rise.\n\n\"Mr. Hodder,\" he said, \"in one respect seems to be under the delusion\nthat we are still in the Middle Ages, instead of the twentieth century,\nsince he assumes the right to meddle with the lives of his parishioners,\nto be the sole judge of their actions. That assumption will not, be\ntolerated by free men. I, for one, gentlemen, do not, propose to have\na socialist for the rector of the church which I attend and support. And\nI maintain the privilege of an American citizen to set my own standards,\nwithin the law, and to be the sole arbitrar of those standards.\"\n\n\"Good!\" muttered Gordon Atterbury. Langmaid moved uncomfortably.\n\n\"I shall not waste words,\" the financier continued. \"There is in my\nmind no question that we are justified in demanding from our rector the\nChristian doctrines to which we have given our assent, and which are\nstated in the Creeds. That they shall be subject to the whims of the\nrector is beyond argument. I do not pretend to, understand either,\ngentlemen, the nature of the extraordinary change that has taken place\nin the rector of St. John's. I am not well versed m psychology. I am\nincapable of flights myself. One effect of this change is an attitude\non which reasonable considerations would seem to have no effect.\n\n\"Our resources, fortunately, are not yet at an end. It has been\nmy hope, on account of my former friendship with Mr. Hodder, that an\necclesiastical trial might not be necessary. It now seems inevitable.\nIn the meantime, since Mr. Hodder has seen fit to remain in spite of\nour protest, I do not intend to enter this church. I was prepared,\ngentlemen, as some of you no doubt know, to spend a considerable sum in\nadding to the beauty of St. John's and to the charitable activities of\nthe parish. Mr. Hodder has not disapproved of my gifts in the past, but\nowing to his present scruples concerning my worthiness, I naturally\nhesitate to press the matter now.\" Mr. Parr indulged in the semblance of\na smile. \"I fear that he must take the responsibility of delaying this\nbenefit, with the other responsibilities he has assumed.\"\n\nHis voice changed. It became sharper.\n\n\"In short, I propose to withhold all contributions for whatever purpose\nfrom this church while Mr. Hodder is rector, and I advise those of you\nwho have voted for his resignation to do the same. In the meantime,\nI shall give my money to Calvary, and attend its services. And I shall\noffer further a resolution--which I am informed is within our right--to\ndiscontinue Mr. Hodder's salary.\"\n\nThere was that in the unparalleled audacity of Eldon Parr that compelled\nHodder's unwilling admiration. He sat gazing at the financier during\nthis speech, speculating curiously on the inner consciousness of the man\nwho could utter it. Was it possible that he had no sense of guilt? Even\nso, he had shown a remarkable astuteness in relying on the conviction\nthat he (Hodder) would not betray what he knew.\n\nHe was suddenly aware that Asa Waring was standing beside him.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said Mr. Waring, \"I have listened to this discussion as long\nas I can bear it with patience. Had I been told of it, I should have\nthought it incredible that the methods of the money changers should be\napplied to the direction and control of the house of God. In my opinion\nthere is but one word which is suitable for what has passed here\nto-night, and the word is persecution. Perhaps I have lived too long I\nhave lived to see honourable, upright men deprived of what was rightfully\ntheirs, driven from their livelihood by the rapacity of those who strive\nto concentrate the wealth and power of the nation into their hands.\nI have seen this power gathering strength, stretching its arm little by\nlittle over the institutions I fought to preserve, and which I cherish\nover our politics, over our government, yes, and even over our courts.\nI have seen it poisoning the business honour in which we formerly took\nsuch a pride, I have seen it reestablishing a slavery more pernicious\nthan that which millions died to efface. I have seen it compel a\nsubservience which makes me ashamed, as an American, to witness.\"\n\nHis glance, a withering moral scorn, darted from under the grizzled\neyebrows and alighted on one man after another, and none met it. Everett\nConstable coughed, Wallis Plimpton shifted his position, the others sat\nlike stones. Asa Waring was giving vent at last to the pent-up feelings\nof many years.\n\n\"And now that power, which respects nothing, has crept into the sanctuary\nof the Church. Our rector recognizes it, I recognize it,--there is not\na man here who, in his heart, misunderstands me. And when a man is found\nwho has the courage to stand up against it, I honour him with all my\nsoul, and a hope that was almost dead revives in me. For there is one\nforce, and one force alone, able to overcome the power of which I speak,\n--the Spirit of Christ. And the mission of the Church is to disseminate\nthat spirit. The Church is the champion on which we have to rely, or\ngive up all hope of victory. The Church must train the recruits. And if\nthe Church herself is betrayed into the hands of the enemy, the battle is\nlost.\n\n\"If Mr. Hodder is forced out of this church, it would be better to lock\nthe doors. St. John's will be held up, and rightfully, to the scorn of\nthe city. All the money in the world will not save her. Though\ncrippled, she has survived one disgrace, when she would not give free\nshelter to the man who above all others expressed her true spirit, when\nshe drove Horace Bentley from her doors after he had been deprived of the\nfortune which he was spending for his fellow-men. She will not survive\nanother.\n\n\"I have no doubt Mr. Parr's motion to take from Mr. Hodder his living\nwill go through. And still I urge him not to resign. I am not a rich\nman, even when such property as I have is compared to moderate fortunes\nof these days, but I would pay his salary willingly out of my own pocket\nrather than see him go . . . .\n\n\"I call the attention of the Chairman,\" said Eldon Parr, after a certain\ninterval in which no one had ventured to speak, \"to the motion before the\nvestry relating to the discontinuance of Mr. Hodder's salary.\"\n\nIt was then that the unexpected happened. Gordon Atterbury redeemed\nhimself. His respect for Mr. Waring, he said, made him hesitate to take\nissue with him.\n\nHe could speak for himself and for a number of people in the congregation\nwhen he reiterated his opinion that they were honestly shocked at what\nMr. Hodder had preached, and that this was his sole motive in requesting\nMr. Hodder to resign. He thought, under the circumstances, that this was\na matter which might safely be left with the bishop. He would not vote\nto deprive Mr. Hodder of his salary.\n\nThe motion was carried by a vote of five to three. For Eldon Parr well\nknew that his will needed no reenforcement by argument. And this much\nwas to be said for him, that after he had entered a battle he never\nhesitated, never under any circumstances reconsidered the probable\neffect of his course.\n\nAs for the others, those who had supported him, they were cast in a less\nheroic mould. Even Francis Ferguson. As between the devil and the deep\nsea, he was compelled, with as good a grace as possible, to choose the\ndevil. He was utterly unable to contemplate the disaster which might\nensue if certain financial ties, which were thicker than cables, were\nsnapped. But his affection for the devil was not increased by thus being\nled into a charge from which he would willingly have drawn back. Asa\nWaring might mean nothing to Eldon Parr, but he meant a great deal to\nFrancis Ferguson, who had by no means forgotten his sensations of\nsatisfaction when Mrs. Waring had made her first call in Park Street on\nFrancis Ferguson's wife. He left the room in such a state of\nabsent-mindedness as actually to pass Mr. Parr in the corridor without\nspeaking to him.\n\nThe case of Wallis Plimpton was even worse. He had married the Gores,\nbut he had sought to bind himself with hoops of steel to the Warings. He\nhad always secretly admired that old Roman quality (which the Goodriches\n--their connections--shared) of holding fast to their course unmindful\nand rather scornful of influence which swayed their neighbours. The clan\nwas sufficient unto itself, satisfied with a moderate prosperity and a\ncontinually increasing number of descendants. The name was unstained.\nSuch are the strange incongruities in the hearts of men, that few\nrealized the extent to which Wallis Plimpton had partaken of the general\nhero-worship of Phil Goodrich. He had assiduously cultivated his regard,\nat times discreetly boasted of it, and yet had never been sure of it.\nAnd now fate, in the form of his master, Eldon Parr had ironically\ncompelled him at one stroke to undo the work of years. As soon as the\nmeeting broke up, he crossed the room.\n\n\"I can't tell you how much I regret this, Phil,\" he said. \"Charlotte has\nvery strong convictions, you know, and so have I. You can understand, I\nam sure, how certain articles of belief might be necessary to one person,\nand not to another.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Phil, \"I can understand. We needn't mention the articles,\nWallis.\" And he turned his back.\n\nHe never knew the pain he inflicted. Wallis Plimpton looked at the\nrector, who stood talking to Mr. Waring, and for the first time in his\nlife recoiled from an overture.\n\nSomething in the faces of both men warned him away.\n\nEven Everett Constable, as they went home in the cars together, was brief\nwith him, and passed no comments when Mr. Plimpton recovered sufficiently\nto elaborate on the justification of their act, and upon the\nextraordinary stand taken by Phil Goodrich and Mr. Waring.\n\n\"They might have told us what they were going to do.\"\n\nEverett Constable eyed him.\n\n\"Would it have made any difference, Plimpton?\" he demanded.\n\nAfter that they rode in silence, until they came to a certain West End\ncorner, where they both descended. Little Mr. Constable's sensations\nwere, if anything, less enviable, and he had not Mr. Plimpton's\nrecuperative powers.  He had sold that night, for a mess of pottage,\nthe friendship and respect of three generations. And he had fought,\nfor pay, against his own people.\n\nAnd lastly, there was Langmaid, whose feelings almost defy analysis. He\nchose to walk through the still night the four miles--that separated him\nfrom his home. And he went back over the years of his life until he\nfound, in the rubbish of the past, a forgotten and tarnished jewel. The\ndiscovery pained him. For that jewel was the ideal he had carried away,\nas a youth, from the old law school at the bottom of Hamilton Place,\n--a gift from no less a man than the great lawyer and public-spirited\ncitizen, Judge Henry Goodrich--Philip Goodrich's grandfather, whose\nseated statue marked the entrance of the library. He, Nelson Langmaid,\n--had gone forth from that school resolved to follow in the footsteps\nof that man,--but somehow he missed the path. Somehow the jewel had lost\nits fire. There had come a tempting offer, and a struggle--just one:\na readjustment on the plea that the world had changed since the days of\nJudge Goodrich, whose uncompromising figure had begun to fade: an\nexciting discovery that he, Nelson Langmaid, possessed the gift of\ndrawing up agreements which had the faculty of passing magically through\nthe meshes of the Statutes. Affluence had followed, and fame, and even\nthat high office which the Judge himself had held, the Presidency of the\nState Bar Association. In all that time, one remark, which he had tried\nto forget, had cut him to the quick. Bedloe Hubbell had said on the\npolitical platform that Langmaid got one hundred thousand dollars a year\nfor keeping Eldon Parr out of jail.\n\nOnce he stopped in the street, his mind suddenly going back to the action\nof the financier at the vestry meeting.\n\n\"Confound him!\" he said aloud, \"he has been a fool for once. I told him\nnot to do it.\"\n\nHe stood at last in the ample vestibule of his house, singling out his\nlatch-key, when suddenly the door opened, and his daughter Helen\nappeared.\n\n\"Oh, dad,\" she cried, \"why are you so-late? I've been watching for you.\nI know you've let Mr. Hodder stay.\"\n\nShe gazed at him with widened eyes.\n\n\"Don't tell me that you've made him resign. I can't--I won't believe\nit.\"\n\n\"He isn't going to resign, Helen,\" Langmaid replied, in an odd voice.\n\n\"He--he refused to.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\n\"RISE, CROWNED WITH LIGHT!\"\n\n\nI\n\nThe Church of St. John's, after a peaceful existence of so many years,\nhad suddenly become the stage on which rapid and bewildering dramas were\nplayed: the storm-centre of chaotic forces, hitherto unperceived, drawn\nfrom the atmosphere around her. For there had been more publicity, more\nadvertising. \"The Rector of St. John's will not talk\"--such had been\none headline: neither would the vestry talk. And yet, despite all this\nsecrecy, the whole story of the suspension of Hodder's salary was in\nprint, and an editorial (which was sent to him) from a popular and\nsensational journal, on \"tainted money,\" in which Hodder was held up\nto the public as a martyr because he refused any longer to accept for\nthe Church ill-gotten gains from Consolidated Tractions and the like.\n\nThis had opened again the floodgates of the mails, and it seemed as\nthough every person who had a real or fancied grievance against Eldon\nParr had written him. Nor did others of his congregation escape. The\npress of visitors at the parish house suddenly increased once more,\nmen and women came to pour into his ears an appalling aeries of\nconfessions; wrongs which, like Garvin's, had engendered bitter hatreds;\nwoes, temptations, bewilderments. Hodder strove to keep his feet, sought\nwisdom to deal patiently with all, though at times he was tried to the\nuttermost. And he held steadfastly before his mind the great thing, that\nthey did come. It was what he had longed for, prayed for, despaired of.\nHe was no longer crying in the empty wilderness, but at last in touch-in\nnatural touch with life: with life in all its sorrow, its crudity and\nhorror. He had contrived, by the grace of God, to make the connection\nfor his church.\n\nThat church might have been likened to a ship sailing out of the snug\nharbour in which she had lain so long to range herself gallantly beside\nthose whom she had formerly beheld, with complacent cowardice, fighting\nher fight: young men and women, enlisted under other banners than her\nown, doing their part in the battle of the twentieth century for\nhumanity. Her rector was her captain. It was he who had cut her cables,\nquelled, for a time at least, her mutineers; and sought to hearten those\nof her little crew who wavered, who shrank back appalled as they realized\nsomething of the immensity of the conflict in which her destiny was to be\nwrought out.\n\nTo carry on the figure, Philip Goodrich might have been deemed her first\nofficer. He, at least, was not appalled, but grimly conscious of the\ngreatness of the task to which they had set their hands. The sudden\ntransformation of conservative St. John's was no more amazing than that\nof the son of a family which had never been without influence in the\ncommunity. But that influence had always been conservative. And Phil\nGoodrich had hitherto taken but a listless interest in the church of his\nfathers. Fortune had smiled upon him, trusts had come to him unsought.\nHe had inherited the family talent for the law, the freedom to practise\nwhen and where he chose. His love of active sport had led him into many\nvacations, when he tramped through marsh and thicket after game, and at\nfive and forty there was not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his hard\nbody. In spite of his plain speaking, an overwhelming popularity at\ncollege had followed him to his native place, and no organization,\nsporting or serious, was formed in the city that the question was not\nasked, \"What does Goodrich think about it?\"\n\nHis whole-souled enlistment in the cause of what was regarded as radical\nreligion became, therefore, the subject of amazed comment in the many\nclubs he now neglected. The \"squabble\" in St. John's, as it was\ngenerally referred to, had been aired in the press, but such was the\nmagic in a name made without conscious effort that Phil Goodrich's\nparticipation in the struggle had a palpably disarming effect: and there\nwere not a few men who commonly spent their Sunday mornings behind\nplate-glass windows, surrounded by newspapers, as well as some in the\nathletic club (whose contests Mr. Goodrich sometimes refereed) who went\nto St. John's out of curiosity and who waited, afterwards, for an\ninterview with Phil or the rector. The remark of one of these was typical\nof others. He had never taken much stock in religion, but if Goodrich\nwent in for it he thought he'd go and look it over.\n\nScarcely a day passed that Phil did not drop in at the parish house....\nAnd he set himself, with all the vigour of an unsquandered manhood, to\nhelp Hodder to solve the multitude of new problems by which they were\nbeset.\n\nA free church was a magnificent ideal, but how was it to be carried on\nwithout an Eldon Parr, a Ferguson, a Constable, a Mrs. Larrabbee, or a\nGore who would make up the deficit at the end of the year? Could weekly\ncontributions, on the envelope system, be relied upon, provided the\npeople continued to come and fill the pews of absent and outraged\nparishioners? The music was the most expensive in the city, although\nMr. Taylor, the organist, had come to the rector and offered to cut his\nsalary in half, and to leave that in abeyance until the finances could be\nadjusted. And his example had been followed by some of the high-paid men\nin the choir. Others had offered to sing without pay. And there were\nthe expenses of the parish house, an alarming sum now Eldon Parr had\nwithdrawn: the salaries of the assistants. Hodder, who had saved a\ncertain sum in past years, would take nothing for the present . . . .\nAsa Waring and Phil Goodrich borrowed on their own responsibility . . .\n\n\n\nII\n\nSomething of the overwhelming nature of the forces Hodder had summoned\nwas visibly apparent on that first Sunday after what many had called his\napostasy. Instead of the orderly, sprucely-dressed groups of people\nwhich were wont to linger in greetings before the doors of St. John's,\na motley crowd thronged the pavement and streamed into the church,\npressing up the aisles and invading the sacred precincts where decorous\nparishioners had for so many years knelt in comfort and seclusion.\nThe familiar figure of Gordon Atterbury was nowhere to be seen, and the\nAtterbury pew was occupied by shop-girls in gaudy hats. Eldon Parr's pew\nwas filled, Everett Constable's, Wallis Plimpton's; and the ushers who\nhad hastily been mustered were awestricken and powerless. Such a\nresistless invasion by the hordes of the unknown might well have struck\nwith terror some of those who hitherto had had the courage to standup\nloyally in the rector's support. It had a distinct flavour of\nrevolution: contained, for some, a grim suggestion of a time when that\nvague, irresponsible, and restless monster, the mob, would rise in its\nmight and brutally and inexorably take possession of all property.\n\nAlison had met Eleanor Goodrich in Burton Street, and as the two made\ntheir way into the crowded vestibule they encountered Martha Preston,\nwhose husband was Alison's cousin, in the act of flight.\n\n\"You're not going in!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"Of course we are.\"\n\nMrs. Preston stared at Alison in amazement.\n\n\"I didn't know you were still here,\" she said, irrelevantly. \"I'm pretty\nliberal, my dear, as you know,--but this is more than I can stand. Look\nat them!\" She drew up her skirts as a woman brushed against her.\n\"I believe in the poor coming to church, and all that, but this is mere\nvulgar curiosity, the result of all that odious advertising in the\nnewspapers. My pew is filled with them. If I had stayed, I should have\nfainted. I don't know what to think of Mr. Hodder.\"\n\n\"Mr. Hodder is not to blame for the newspapers,\" replied Alison, warmly.\nShe glanced around her at the people pushing past, her eyes shining, her\ncolour high, and there was the ring of passion in her voice which had do\nMartha Preston a peculiarly disquieting effect. \"I think it's splendid\nthat they are here at all! I don't care what brought them.\"\n\nMrs. Preston stared again. She was a pretty, intelligent woman, at whose\ndinner table one was sure to hear the discussion of some \"modern\nproblem\": she believed herself to be a socialist. Her eyes sought\nEleanor Goodrich's, who stood by, alight with excitement.\n\n\"But surely you, Eleanor-you're not going in! You'll never be able to\nstand it, even if you find a seat. The few people we know who've come\nare leaving. I just saw the Allan Pendletons.\"\n\n\"Have you seen Phil?\" Eleanor asked.\n\n\"Oh, yes, he's in there, and even he's helpless. And as I came out poor\nMr. Bradley was jammed up against the wall. He seemed perfectly stunned\n. . . .\"\n\nAt this moment they were thrust apart. Eleanor quivered as she was\ncarried through the swinging doors into the church.\n\n\"I think you're right,\" she whispered to Alison, \"it is splendid.\nThere's something about it that takes hold of me, that carries one away.\nIt makes me wonder how it can be guided--what will come of it?\"\n\nThey caught sight of Phil pushing his way towards them, and his face bore\nthe set look of belligerency which Eleanor knew so well, but he returned\nher smile. Alison's heart warmed towards him.\n\n\"What do you think of this?\" he demanded. \"Most of our respectable\nfriends who dared to come have left in a towering rage--to institute\nlawsuits, probably. At tiny rate, strangers are not being made to wait\nuntil ten minutes after the service begins. That's one barbarous custom\nabolished.\"\n\n\"Strangers seem to have taken matters in their own hands for once\"\nEleanor smiled. \"We've made up our minds to stay, Phil, even if we have\nto stand.\"\n\n\"That's the right spirit,\" declared her husband, glancing at Alison, who\nhad remained silent, with approval and by no means a concealed surprise.\n\"I think I know of a place where I can squeeze you in, near Professor\nBridges and Sally, on the side aisle.\"\n\n\"Are George and Sally here?\" Eleanor exclaimed.\n\n\"Hodder,\" said Phil, \"is converting the heathen. You couldn't have kept\nGeorge away. And it was George who made Sally stay!\"\n\nPresently they found themselves established between a rawboned young\nworkingman who smelled strongly of soap, whose hair was plastered tightly\nagainst his forehead, and a young woman who leaned against the wall. The\nblack in which she was dressed enhanced the whiteness and weariness of\nher face, and she sat gazing ahead of her, apparently unconscious of\nthose who surrounded her, her hands tightly folded in her lap. In their\nimmediate vicinity, indeed, might have been found all the variety of type\nseen in the ordinary street car. And in truth there were some who seemed\nscarcely to realize they were not in a public vehicle. An elaborately\ndressed female in front of them, whose expansive hat brushed her\nneighbours, made audible comments to a stout man with a red neck which\nwas set in a crease above his low collar.\n\n\"They tell me Eldon Parr's pew has a gold plate on it. I wish I knew\nwhich it was. It ain't this one, anyway, I'll bet.\"\n\n\"Say, they march in in this kind of a church, don't they?\" some one said\nbehind them.\n\nEleanor, with her lips tightly pressed, opened her prayer book. Alison's\nlips were slightly parted as she gazed about her, across the aisle. Her\nexperience of the Sunday before, deep and tense as it had been, seemed as\nnothing compared to this; the presence of all these people stimulated her\ninexpressibly, fired her; and she felt the blood pulsing through her\nbody as she contrasted this gathering with the dignified, scattered\ncongregation she had known. She scarcely recognized the church itself\n. . . She speculated on the homes from which these had come, and the\nmotives which had brought them.\n\nFor a second the perfume of the woman in front, mingling with other less\ndefinable odours, almost sickened her, evoking suggestions of tawdry,\ntrivial, vulgar lives, fed on sensation and excitement; but the feeling\nwas almost immediately swept away by a renewed sense of the bigness of\nthe thing which she beheld,--of which, indeed, she was a part. And her\nthoughts turned more definitely to the man who had brought it all about.\nCould he control it, subdue it? Here was Opportunity suddenly upon him,\nlike a huge, curving, ponderous wave. Could he ride it? or would it\ncrush him remorselessly?\n\nSensitive, alert, quickened as she was, she began to be aware of other\nvalues: of the intense spiritual hunger in the eyes of the woman in\nblack, the yearning of barren, hopeless existences. And here and there\nAlison's look fell upon more prosperous individuals whose expressions\nproclaimed incredulity, a certain cynical amusement at the spectacle:\nothers seemed uneasy, as having got more than they had bargained for,\ndeliberating whether to flee . . . and then, just as her suspense was\nbecoming almost unbearable, the service began. . . .\n\nHow it had been accomplished, the thing she later felt, was beyond the\nrange of intellectual analysis. Nor could she have told how much later,\nsince the passage of time had gone unnoticed. Curiosities, doubts,\npassions, longings, antagonisms--all these seemed--as the most natural\nthing in the world--to have been fused into one common but ineffable\nemotion. Such, at least, was the impression to which Alison startlingly\nawoke. All the while she had been conscious of Hodder, from the moment\nshe had heard his voice in the chancel; but somehow this consciousness of\nhim had melted, imperceptibly, into that of the great congregation, once\ndivided against itself, which had now achieved unity of soul.\n\nThe mystery as to how this had been effected was the more elusive when\nshe considered the absence of all methods which might have been deemed\nrevivalistic. Few of those around her evinced a familiarity with the\nhistoric service. And then occurred to her his explanation of\npersonality as the medium by which all truth is revealed, by which the\ncurrent of religion, the motive power in all history, is transmitted.\nSurely this was the explanation, if it might be called one! That\ntingling sense of a pervading spirit which was his,--and yet not his.\nHe was the incandescent medium, and yet, paradoxically, gained in\nidentity and individuality and was inseparable from the thing itself.\n\nShe could not see him. A pillar hid the chancel from her view.\n\nThe service, to which she had objected as archaic, became subordinate,\nspiritualized, dominated by the personality. Hodder had departed from\nthe usual custom by giving out the page of the psalter: and the verses,\nthe throbbing responses which arose from every corner of the church,\nassumed a new significance, the vision of the ancient seer revived. One\nverse he read resounded with prophecy.\n\n\"Thou shalt deliver me from the strivings of the people: and thou shalt\nmake me the head of the heathen.\"\n\nAnd the reply:\n\n\"A people whom I have not known shall serve me.\"\n\nThe working-man next to Alison had no prayer-book. She thrust her own\ninto his hand, and they read from it together . . . .\n\nWhen they came to the second hymn the woman in front of her had\nwonderfully shed her vulgarity. Her voice--a really good one--poured\nitself out:\n\n       \"See a long race thy spacious courts adorn,\n        See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,\n        In crowding ranks on every side arise,\n        Demanding life, impatient for the skies.\"\n\nOnce Alison would have been critical of the words She was beyond that,\nnow. What did it matter, if the essential Thing were present?\n\nThe sermon was a surprise. And those who had come for excitement,\nfor the sensation of hearing a denunciation of a class they envied and\ntherefore hated, and nevertheless strove to imitate, were themselves\nrebuked. Were not their standards the same? And if the standard were\nfalse, it followed inevitably that the life was false also.\n\nHodder fairly startled these out of their preconceived notions of\nChristianity. Let them shake out of their minds everything they had\nthought it to mean, churchgoing, acceptance of creed and dogma,\ncontributive charity, withdrawal from the world, rites and ceremonies:\nit was none of these.\n\nThe motive in the world to-day was the acquisition of property; the\nmotive of Christianity was absolutely and uncompromisingly opposed to\nthis. Shock their practical sense as it might, Christianity looked\nforward with steadfast faith to a time when the incentive to amass\nproperty would be done away with, since it was a source of evil and\na curse to mankind. If they would be Christians, let them face that.\nLet them enter into life, into the struggles going on around them to-day\nagainst greed, corruption, slavery, poverty, vice and crime. Let them\nprotest, let them fight, even as Jesus Christ had fought and protested.\nFor as sure as they sat there the day would come when they would be\ncalled to account, would be asked the question--what had they done to\nmake the United States of America a better place to live in?\n\nThere were in the Apostolic writings and tradition misinterpretations\nof life which had done much harm. Early Christianity had kept its eyes\nfixed on another world, and had ignored this: had overlooked the fact\nthat every man and woman was put here to do a particular work. In the\nfirst epistle of Peter the advice was given, \"submit yourselves to every\nordinance of man for the Lord's sake.\" But Christ had preached\ndemocracy, responsibility, had foreseen a millennium, the fulfilment of\nhis Kingdom, when all men, inspired by the Spirit, would make and keep\nin spirit the ordinances of God.\n\nBefore they could do God's work and man's work they must first be\nawakened, filled with desire. Desire was power. And he prayed that some\nof them, on this day, would receive that desire, that power which nothing\ncould resist. The desire which would lead each and every one to the\ngates of the Inner World which was limitless and eternal, filled with\ndazzling light . . . .\n\nLet them have faith then. Not credulity in a vague God they could not\nimagine, but faith in the Spirit of the Universe, humanity, in Jesus\nChrist who had been the complete human revelation of that Spirit, who had\nsuffered and died that man might not live in ignorance of it. To doubt\nhumanity,--such was the Great Refusal, the sin against the Holy Ghost,\nthe repudiation of the only true God!\n\nAfter a pause, he spoke simply of his hope for St. John's. If he\nremained here his ambition was that it would be the free temple of\nhumanity, of Jesus Christ, supported not by a few, but by all,--each in\naccordance with his means. Of those who could afford nothing, nothing\nwould be required. Perhaps this did not sound practical, nor would it be\nso if the transforming inspiration failed. He could only trust and try,\nhold up to them the vision of the Church as a community of willing\nworkers for the Kingdom . . .\n\n\n\nIII\n\nAfter the service was over the people lingered in the church, standing in\nthe pews and aisles, as though loath to leave. The woman with the\nperfume and the elaborate hat was heard to utter a succinct remark.\n\n\"Say, Charlie, I guess he's all right. I never had it put like that.\"\n\nThe thick-necked man's reply was inaudible.\n\nEleanor Goodrich was silent and a little pale as she pressed close to\nAlison. Her imagination had been stretched, as it were, and she was\nstill held in awe by the vastness of what she had heard and seen. Vaster\neven than ever,--so it appeared now,--demanding greater sacrifices than\nshe had dreamed of. She looked back upon the old as at receding shores.\n\nAlison, with absorbed fascination, watched the people; encountered, here\nand there, recognitions from men and women with whom she had once danced\nand dined in what now seemed a previous existence. Why had they come?\nand how had they received the message? She ran into a little man, a\ndealer in artists' supplies who once had sold her paints and brushes, who\nstared and bowed uncertainly. She surprised him by taking his hand.\n\n\"Did you like it?\" she asked, impulsively.\n\n\"It's what I've been thinking for years, Miss Parr,\" he responded,\n\"thinking and feeling. But I never knew it was Christianity. And I\nnever thought--\" he stopped and looked at her, alarmed.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, \"I believe in it, too--or try to.\"\n\nShe left him, mentally gasping . . . . Without, on the sidewalk,\nEleanor Goodrich was engaged in conversation with a stockily built man,\ninclined to stoutness; he had a brown face and a clipped, bristly\nmustache. Alison paused involuntarily, and saw him start and hesitate\nas his clear, direct gaze met her own.\n\nBedloe Hubbell was one of those who had once sought to marry her. She\nrecalled him as an amiable and aimless boy; and after she had gone East\nshe had received with incredulity and then with amusement the news of his\nventure into altruistic politics. It was his efficiency she had doubted,\nnot his sincerity. Later tidings, contemptuous and eventually irritable\nutterances of her own father, together with accounts in the New York\nnewspapers of his campaign, had convinced her in spite of herself that\nBedloe Hubbell had actually shaken the seats of power. And somehow, as\nshe now took him in, he looked it.\n\nHis transformation was one of the signs, one of the mysteries of the\ntimes. The ridicule and abuse of the press, the opposition and enmity of\nhis childhood friends, had developed the man of force she now beheld, and\nwho came forward to greet her.\n\n\"Alison!\" he exclaimed. He had changed in one sense, and not in another.\nHer colour deepened as the sound of his voice brought back the lapsed\nmemories of the old intimacy. For she had been kind to him, kinder than\nto any other; and the news of his marriage--to a woman from the Pacific\ncoast--had actually induced in her certain longings and regrets. When\nthe cards had reached her, New York and the excitement of the life into\nwhich she had been weakly, if somewhat unwittingly, drawn had already\nbegun to pall.\n\n\"I'm so glad to see you,\" she told him. \"I've heard--so many things.\nAnd I'm very much in sympathy with what you're doing.\"\n\nThey crossed the street, and walked away from the church together. She\nhad surprised him, and made him uncomfortable.\n\n\"You've been away so long,\" he managed to say, \"perhaps you do not\nrealize--\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I do,\" she interrupted. \"I am on the other side, on your side.\nI thought of writing you, when you nearly won last autumn.\"\n\n\"You see it, too?\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"Yes, I've changed, too. Not so much as you,\" she added, shyly.\n\"I always had a certain sympathy, you know, with the Robin Hoods.\"\n\nHe laughed at her designation, both pleased and taken aback by her\npraise. . . But he wondered if she knew the extent of his criticism\nof her father.\n\n\"That rector is a wonderful man,\" he broke out, irrelevantly. \"I can't\nget over' him--I can't quite grasp the fact that he exists, that he has\ndared to do what he has done.\"\n\nThis brought her colour back, but she faced him bravely. You think he is\nwonderful, then?\"\n\n\"Don't you?\" he demanded.\n\nShe assented. \"But I am curious to know why you do. Somehow, I never\nthought of--you--\"\n\n\"As religious,\" he supplied. \"And you? If I remember rightly--\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she interrupted, \"I revolted, too. But Mr. Hodder puts it so\n--it makes one wonder.\"\n\n\"He has not only made me wonder,\" declared Bedloe Hubbell, emphatically,\n\"I never knew what religion was until I heard this man last Sunday.\"\n\n\"Last Sunday!\"\n\n\"Until then, I hadn't been inside of a church for fifteen years,--except\nto get married. My wife takes the children, occasionally, to a\nPresbyterian church near us.\"\n\n\"And why, did you go then?\" she asked.\n\n\"I am a little ashamed of my motive,\" he confessed. \"There were rumours\n--I don't pretend to know how they got about--\" he hesitated, once more\naware of delicate ground. \"Wallis Plimpton said something to a man who\ntold me. I believe I went out of sheer curiosity to hear what Hodder\nwould have to say. And then, I had been reading, wondering whether there\nwere anything in Christianity, after all.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" she said, careless now as to what cause he might attribute her\neagerness. \"And he gave you something?\"\n\nIt was then she grasped the truth that this sudden renewed intimacy was\nthe result of the impression Hodder had left upon the minds of both.\n\n\"He gave me everything,\" Bedloe Hubbell replied. \"I am willing to\nacknowledge it freely. In his explanation of the parable of the Prodigal\nSon, he gave me the clew to our modern times. What was for me an\ninextricable puzzle has become clear as day. He has made me understand,\nat last, the force which stirred me, which goaded me until I was fairly\ncompelled to embark in the movement which the majority of our citizens\nstill continue to regard as quixotic. I did not identify that force with\nreligion, then, and when I looked back on the first crazy campaign we\nembarked upon, with the whole city laughing at me and at the obscure\nand impractical personnel we had, there were moments when it seemed\nincomprehensible folly. I had nothing to gain, and everything to lose by\nsuch a venture. I was lazy and easy-going, as you know. I belonged to\nthe privileged class, I had sufficient money to live in comparative\nluxury all my days, I had no grudge against these men whom I had known\nall my life.\"\n\n\"But it must have had some beginning,\" said Alison.\n\n\"I was urged to run for the city council, by these very men.\" Bedloe\nHubbell smiled at the recollection. \"They accuse me now of having\nindulged once in the same practice, for which I am condemning them.\nOur company did accept rebates, and we sought favours from the city\ngovernment. I have confessed it freely on the platform. Even during my\nfirst few months in the council what may be called the old political\npractices seemed natural to me. But gradually the iniquity of it all\nbegan to dawn on me, and then I couldn't rest until I had done something\ntowards stopping it.\n\n\"At length I began to see,\" he continued, \"that education of the masses\nwas to be our only preserver, that we should have to sink or swim by\nthat. I began to see, dimly, that this was true for other movements\ngoing on to-day. Now comes Hodder with what I sincerely believe is the\nkey. He compels men like me to recognize that our movements are not\nmerely moral, but religious. Religion, as yet unidentified, is the force\nbehind these portentous stirrings of politics in our country, from sea to\nsea. He aims, not to bring the Church into politics, but to make her the\nfeeder of these movements. Men join them to-day from all motives, but\nthe religious is the only one to which they may safely be trusted. He\nhas rescued the jewel from the dust-heap of tradition, and holds it up,\nshining, before our eyes.\"\n\nAlison looked at her companion.\n\n\"That,\" she said, \"is a very beautiful phrase.\"\n\nBedloe Hubbell smiled queerly.\n\n\"I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I can't usually talk about\nit. But the sight of that congregation this morning, mixed as it was,\nand the way he managed to weld it together.\"\n\n\"Ah, you noticed that!\" she exclaimed sharply.\n\n\"Noticed it!\"\n\n\"I know. It was a question of feeling it.\"\n\nThere was a silence.\n\n\"Will he succeed?\" she asked presently.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Bedloe Hubbell, \"how is it possible to predict it? The forces\nagainst him are tremendous, and it is usually the pioneer who suffers.\nI agree absolutely with his definition of faith, I have it. And the work\nhe has done already can never be undone. The time is ripe, and it is\nsomething that he has men like Phil Goodrich behind him, and Mr. Waring.\nI'm going to enlist, and from now on I intend to get every man and woman\nupon whom I have any influence whatever to go to that church . . . .\"\nA little later Alison, marvelling, left him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nTHE CURRENT OF LIFE\n\n\nI\n\nThe year when Hodder had gone east--to Bremerton and Bar Harbor,\nhe had read in the train a magazine article which had set fire to his\nimagination. It had to do with the lives of the men, the engineers who\ndared to deal with the wild and terrible power of the western hills, who\nharnessed and conquered roaring rivers, and sent the power hundreds of\nmiles over the wilderness, by flimsy wires, to turn the wheels of\nindustry and light the dark places of the cities. And, like all men who\ncame into touch with elemental mysteries, they had their moments of pure\necstasy, gaining a tingling, intenser life from the contact with dynamic\nthings; and other moments when, in their struggle for mastery, they were\nbuffeted about, scorched, and almost overwhelmed.\n\nIn these days the remembrance of that article came back to Hodder.\nIt was as though he, too, were seeking to deflect and guide a force\n--the Force of forces. He, too, was buffeted, scorched, and bruised,\nat periods scarce given time to recover himself in the onward rush he\nhimself had started, and which he sought to control. Problems arose\nwhich demanded the quick thinking of emergency. He, too, had his moments\nof reward, the reward of the man who is in touch with reality.\n\nHe lived, from day to day, in a bewildering succession of encouragements\nand trials, all unprecedented. If he remained at St. John's, an entire\nnew organization would be necessary . . . . He did not as yet see it\nclearly; and in the meantime, with his vestry alienated, awaiting the\nbishop's decision, he could make no definite plans, even if he had had\nthe leisure. Wholesale desertions had occurred in the guilds and\nsocieties, the activities of which had almost ceased. Little Tomkinson,\nthe second assistant, had resigned; and McCrae, who worked harder than\never before, was already marked, Hodder knew, for dismissal if he himself\nwere defeated.\n\nAnd then there was the ever present question of money. It remained to\nbe seen whether a system of voluntary offerings were practicable. For\nHodder had made some inquiries into the so-called \"free churches,\" only\nto discover that there were benefactors behind them, benefactors the\nChristianity of whose lives was often doubtful.\n\nOne morning he received in the mail the long-expected note from the\nbishop, making an appointment for the next day. Hodder, as he read it\nover again, smiled to himself. . . He could gather nothing of the mind\nof the writer from the contents.\n\nThe piece of news which came to him on the same morning swept completely\nthe contemplations of the approaching interview from his mind. Sally\nGrover stopped in at the parish house on her way to business.\n\n\"Kate Marcy's gone,\" she announced, in her abrupt fashion.\n\n\"Gone!\" he exclaimed, and stared at her in dismay. \"Gone where?\"\n\n\"That's just it,\" said Miss Grover. \"I wish I knew. I reckon we'd got\ninto the habit of trusting her too much, but it seemed the only way. She\nwasn't in her room last night, but Ella Finley didn't find it out until\nthis morning, and she ran over scared to death, to tell us about it.\"\n\nInvoluntarily the rector reached for his hat.\n\n\"I've sent out word among our friends in Dalton Street,\" Sally continued.\nAn earthquake could not have disturbed her outer, matter-of-fact\ncalmness. But Hodder was not deceived: he knew that she was as\nprofoundly grieved and discouraged as himself. \"And I've got old Gratz,\nthe cabinet-maker, on the job. If she's in Dalton Street, he'll find\nher.\"\n\n\"But what--?\" Hodder began.\n\nSally threw up her hands.\n\n\"You never can tell, with that kind. But it sticks in my mind she's done\nsomething foolish.\"\n\n\"Foolish?\"\n\nSally twitched, nervously.\n\n\"Somehow I don't think it's a spree--but as I say, you can't tell. She's\nfull of impulses. You remember how she frightened us once before, when\nshe went off and stayed all night with the woman she used to know in the\nflat house, when she heard she was sick?\"\n\nHodder nodded.\n\n\"You've inquired there?\"\n\n\"That woman went to the hospital, you know. She may be with another one.\nIf she is, Gratz ought to find her. . . You know there was a time, Mr.\nHodder, when I didn't have much hope that we'd pull her through. But we\ngot hold of her through her feelings. She'd do anything for Mr. Bentley\n--she'd do anything for you, and the way she stuck to that embroidery was\nfine. I don't say she was cured, but whenever she'd feel one of those\nfits coming on she'd let us know about it, and we'd watch her. And I\nnever saw one of that kind change so. Why, she must be almost as good\nlooking now as she ever was.\"\n\n\"You don't think she has done anything--desperate?\" asked Hodder, slowly.\n\nSally comprehended.\n\n\"Well--somehow I don't. She used to say if she ever got drunk again\nshe'd never come back. But she didn't have any money--she's given Mr.\nBentley every cent of it. And we didn't have any warning. She was as\ncheerful as could be yesterday morning, Mrs. McQuillen says.\"\n\n\"It might not do any harm to notify the police,\" replied Hodder, rising.\n\"I'll go around to headquarters now.\"\n\nHe was glad of the excuse for action. He could not have sat still. And\nas he walked rapidly across Burton Street he realized with a pang how\nmuch his heart had been set on Kate Marcy's redemption. In spite of the\nfact that every moment of his time during the past fortnight had been\nabsorbed by the cares, responsibilities, and trials thrust upon him, he\nreproached himself for not having gone oftener to Dalton Street. And\nyet, if Mr. Bentley and Sally Grower had been unable to foresee and\nprevent this, what could he have done?\n\nAt police headquarters he got no news. The chief received him\ndeferentially, sympathetically, took down Kate Marcy's description,\nwent so far as to remark, sagely, that too much mustn't be expected\nof these women, and said he would notify the rector if she were found.\nThe chief knew and admired Mr. Bentley, and declared he was glad to meet\nMr. Hodder. . . Hodder left, too preoccupied to draw any significance\nfrom the nature of his welcome. He went at once to Mr. Bentley's.\n\nThe old gentleman was inclined to be hopeful, to take Sally Grower's view\nof the matter. . He trusted, he said, Sally's instinct. And Hodder\ncame away less uneasy, not a little comforted by a communion which never\nfailed to fortify him, to make him marvel at the calmness of that world\nin which his friend lived, a calmness from which no vicarious sorrow was\nexcluded. And before Hodder left, Mr. Bentley had drawn from him some\naccount of the more recent complexities at the church. The very pressure\nof his hand seemed to impart courage.\n\n\"You won't stay and have dinner with me?\"\n\nThe rector regretfully declined.\n\n\"I hear the bishop has returned,\" said Mr. Bentley, smiling.\n\nHodder was surprised. He had never heard Mr. Bentley speak of the\nbishop. Of course he must know him.\n\n\"I have my talk with him to-morrow.\"\n\nMr. Bentley said nothing, but pressed his hand again . . . .\n\nOn Tower Street, from the direction of the church, he beheld a young man\nand a young woman approaching him absorbed in conversation. Even at a\ndistance both seemed familiar, and presently he identified the lithe and\ndainty figure in the blue dress as that of the daughter of his vestryman,\nFrancis Ferguson. Presently she turned her face, alight with animation,\nfrom her companion, and recognized him.\n\n\"It's Mr. Hodder!\" she exclaimed, and was suddenly overtaken with a\ncrimson shyness. The young man seemed equally embarrassed as they stood\nfacing the rector.\n\n\"I'm afraid you don't remember me, Mr. Hodder,\" he said. \"I met you at\nMr. Ferguson's last spring.\"\n\nThen it came to him. This was the young man who had made the faux pas\nwhich had caused Mrs. Ferguson so much consternation, and who had so\nmanfully apologized afterwards. His puzzled expression relaxed into a\nsmile, and he took the young man's hand.\n\n\"I was going to write to you,\" said Nan, as she looked up at the rector\nfrom under the wide brim of her hat. \"Our engagement is to be announced\nWednesday.\"\n\nHodder congratulated them. There was a brief silence, when Nan said\ntremulously:\n\n\"We're coming to St. John's!\"\n\n\"I'm very glad,\" Hodder replied, gravely. It was one of those\ncompensating moments, for him, when his tribulations vanished; and the\ntributes of the younger generation were those to which his heart most\nfreely responded. But the situation, in view of the attitude of Francis\nFerguson, was too delicate to be dwelt upon.\n\n\"I came to hear you last Sunday, Mr. Hodder,\" the young man volunteered,\nwith that mixture of awkwardness and straightforwardness which often\ncharacterize his sex and age in referring to such matters. \"And I had\nan idea of writing you, too, to tell you how much I liked what you said.\nBut I know you must have had many letters. You've made me think.\"\n\nHe flushed, but met the rector's eye. Nan stood regarding him with\npride.\n\n\"You've made me think, too,\" she added. \"And we intend to pitch in and\nhelp you, if we can be of any use.\"\n\nHe parted from them, wondering. And it was not until he had reached the\nparish house that it occurred to him that he was as yet unenlightened as\nto the young man's name . . . .\n\nHis second reflection brought back to his mind Kate Mercy, for it was\nwith a portion of Nan Ferguson's generous check that her board had been\npaid. And he recalled the girl's hope, as she had given it to him, that\nhe would find some one in Dalton Street to help . . . .\n\n\n\nII\n\nThere might, to the mundane eye, have been an element of the ridiculous\nin the spectacle of the rector of St. John's counting his gains, since he\nhad chosen--with every indication of insanity--to bring the pillars of\nhis career crashing down on his own head. By no means the least,\nhowever, of the treasures flung into his lap was the tie which now bound\nhim to the Philip Goodriches, which otherwise would never have been\npossible. And as he made his way thither on this particular evening, a\nrenewed sense came upon him of his emancipation from the dreary, useless\nhours he had been wont to spend at other dinner tables. That existence\nappeared to him now as the glittering, feverish unreality of a nightmare\nfilled with restless women and tired men who drank champagne, thus\ngradually achieving--by the time cigars were reached--an artificial\nvivacity. The caprice and superficiality of the one sex, the inability\nto dwell upon or even penetrate a serious subject, the blindness to what\nwas going on around them; the materialism, the money standard of both,\nwere nauseating in the retrospect.\n\nHow, indeed, had life once appeared so distorted to him, a professed\nservant of humanity, as to lead him in the name of duty into that galley?\n\nSuch was the burden of his thought when the homelike front of the\nGoodrich house greeted him in the darkness, its enshrouded windows\ngleaming with friendly light. As the door opened, the merry sound of\nchildren's laughter floated down the stairs, and it seemed to Hodder as\nthough a curse had been lifted. . . . The lintel of this house had\nbeen marked for salvation, the scourge had passed it by: the scourge of\nsocial striving which lay like a blight on a free people.\n\nWithin, the note of gentility, of that instinctive good taste to which\nmany greater mansions aspired in vain, was sustained. The furniture, the\npictures, the walls and carpets were true expressions of the\nindividuality of master and mistress, of the unity of the life lived\ntogether; and the rector smiled as he detected, in a corner of the hall,\na sturdy but diminutive hobby-horse--here the final, harmonious touch.\nThere was the sound of a scuffle, treble shrieks of ecstasy from above,\nand Eleanor Goodrich came out to welcome him.\n\n\"Its Phil,\" she told him in laughing despair, \"he upsets all my\ndiscipline, and gets them so excited they don't go to sleep for hours...\"\n\nSeated in front of the fire in the drawing-room, he found Alison Parr.\nHer coolness, her radiancy, her complete acceptance of the situation, all\nthis and more he felt from the moment he touched her hand and looked into\nher face. And never had she so distinctly represented to him the\nmysterious essence of fate. Why she should have made the fourth at this\nintimate gathering, and whether or not she was or had been an especial\nfriend of Eleanor Goodrich he did not know. There was no explanation....\n\nA bowl of superb chrysanthemums occupied the centre of the table.\nEleanor lifted them off and placed them on the sideboard.\n\n\"I've got used to looking at Phil,\" she explained, \"and craning is so\npainful.\"\n\nThe effect at first was to increase the intensity of the intimacy. There\nwas no reason--he told himself--why Alison's self-possession should have\nbeen disturbed; and as he glanced at her from time to time he perceived\nthat it was not. So completely was she mistress of herself that\npresently he felt a certain faint resentment rising within him,--yet\nhe asked himself why she should not have been. It was curious that his\nimagination would not rise, now, to a realization of that intercourse on\nwhich, at times, his fancy had dwelt with such vividness. The very\ninterest, the eagerness with which she took part in their discussions\nseemed to him in the nature of an emphatic repudiation of any ties to him\nwhich might have been binding.\n\nAll this was only, on Hodder's part, to be aware of the startling\ndiscovery as to how strong his sense of possession had been, and how\nirrational, how unwarranted.\n\nFor he had believed himself, as regarding her, to have made the supreme\nrenunciation of his life. And the very fact that he had not consulted,\ncould not consult her feelings and her attitude made that renunciation no\nless difficult. All effort, all attempt at achievement of the only woman\nfor whom he had ever felt the sublime harmony of desire--the harmony of\nthe mind and the flesh--was cut off.\n\nTo be here, facing her again in such close proximity, was at once a\npleasure and a torture. And gradually he found himself yielding to the\npleasure, to the illusion of permanency created by her presence.\nAnd, when all was said, he had as much to be grateful for as he could\nreasonably have wished; yes, and more. The bond (there was a bond, after\nall!) which united them was unbreakable. They had forged it together.\nThe future would take care of itself.\n\nThe range of the conversation upon which they at length embarked was a\ntacit acknowledgment of a relationship which now united four persons who,\nsix months before, would have believed themselves to have had nothing\nin common. And it was characteristic of the new interest that it\ntranscended the limits of the parish of St. John's, touched upon the\ngreater affairs to which that parish--if their protest prevailed--would\nnow be dedicated. Not that the church was at once mentioned, but subtly\nimplied as now enlisted,--and emancipated henceforth from all\necclesiastical narrowness . . . . The amazing thing by which Hodder\nwas suddenly struck was the naturalness with which Alison seemed to fit\ninto the new scheme. It was as though she intended to remain there, and\nhad abandoned all intention of returning to the life which apparently she\nhad once permanently and definitely chosen....\n\nBedloe Hubbell's campaign was another topic. And Phil had observed,\nwith the earnestness which marked his more serious statements, that it\nwouldn't surprise him if young Carter, Hubbell's candidate for mayor,\noverturned that autumn the Beatty machine.\n\n\"Oh, do you think so!\" Alison exclaimed with exhilaration.\n\n\"They're frightened and out of breath,\" said Phil, \"they had no idea\nthat Bedloe would stick after they had licked him in three campaigns.\nTwo years ago they tried to buy him off by offering to send him to the\nSenate, and Wallis Plimpton has never got through his head to this why\nhe refused.\"\n\nPlimpton's head, Eleanor declared dryly, was impervious to a certain kind\nof idea.\n\n\"I wonder if you know, Mr. Hodder, what an admirer Mr. Hubbell is of\nyours?\" Alison asked. \"He is most anxious to have a talk with you.\"\n\nHodder did not know.\n\n\"Well,\" said Phil, enthusiastically, to the rector, \"that's the best\ntribute you've had yet. I can't say that Bedloe was a more unregenerate\nheathen than I was, but he was pretty bad.\"\n\nThis led them, all save Hodder, into comments on the character of the\ncongregation the Sunday before, in the midst of which the rector was\ncalled away to the telephone. Sally Grover had promised to let him know\nwhether or not they had found Kate Marcy, and his face was grave when he\nreturned . . . . He was still preoccupied, an hour later, when Alison\narose to go.\n\n\"But your carriage isn't here,\" said Phil, going to the window.\n\n\"Oh, I preferred to, walk,\" she told him, \"it isn't far.\"\n\n\n\nIII\n\nA blood-red October moon shed the fulness of its light on the silent\nhouses, and the trees, still clinging to leaf, cast black shadows across\nthe lawns and deserted streets. The very echoes of their footsteps on\nthe pavement seemed to enhance the unreality of their surroundings: Some\nof the residences were already closed for the night, although the hour\nwas not late, and the glow behind the blinds of the others was nullified\nby the radiancy from above. To Hodder, the sense of their isolation had\nnever been more complete.\n\nAlison, while repudiating the notion that an escort were needed in a\nneighbourhood of such propriety and peace, had not refused his offer to\naccompany her. And Hodder felt instinctively, as he took his place\nbeside her, a sense of climax. This situation, like those of the past,\nwas not of his own making. It was here; confronting him, and a certain\ninevitable intoxication at being once, more alone with her prevented him\nfrom forming any policy with which to deal with it. He might either\ntrust himself, or else he might not. And as she said, the distance was\nnot great. But he could not help wondering, during those first moments\nof silence, whether she comprehended the strength of the temptation to\nwhich she subjected him . . . .\n\nThe night was warm. She wore a coat, which was open, and from time to\ntime he caught the gleam of the moonlight on the knotted pearls at her\nthroat. Over her head she had flung, mantilla-like, a black lace scarf,\nthe effect of which was, in the soft luminosity encircling her, to add to\nthe quality of mystery never exhausted. If by acquiescing in his company\nshe had owned to a tie between them, the lace shawl falling over the\ntails of her dark hair and framing in its folds her face, had somehow\nmade her once more a stranger. Nor was it until she presently looked up\ninto his face with a smile that this impression was, if not at once\nwholly dissipated, at least contradicted.\n\nHer question, indeed, was intimate.\n\n\"Why did you come with me?\"\n\n\"Why?\" he repeated, taken aback.\n\n\"Yes. I'm sure you have something you wish to do, something which\nparticularly worries you.\"\n\n\"No,\" he answered, appraising her intuition of him, \"there is nothing I\ncan do, to-night. A young woman in whom Mr. Bentley is interested, in\nwhom I am interested, has disappeared. But we have taken all the steps\npossible towards finding her.\"\n\n\"It was nothing--more serious, then? That, of course, is serious enough.\nNothing, I mean, directly affecting your prospects of remaining--where\nyou are?\"\n\n\"No,\" he answered. He rejoiced fiercely that she should have asked him.\nThe question was not bold, but a natural resumption of the old footing\n\"Not that I mean to imply,\" he added, returning her smile, \"that those\nprospects' are in any way improved.\"\n\n\"Are they any worse?\" she said.\n\n\"I see the bishop to-morrow. I have no idea what position he will take.\nBut even if he should decide not to recommend me for trial many difficult\nproblems still remain to be solved.\"\n\n\"I know. It's fine,\" she continued, after a moment, \"the way you are\ngoing ahead as if there were no question of your not remaining; and\ngetting all those people into the church and influencing them as you did\nwhen they had come for all sorts of reasons. Do you remember, the first\ntime I met you, I told you I could not think of you as a clergyman. I\ncannot now--less than ever.\"\n\n\"What do you think of me as?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she considered. \"You are unlike any person I have ever\nknown. It is curious that I cannot now even think of St. John's as a\nchurch. You have transformed it into something that seems new. I'm\nafraid I can't describe what I mean, but you have opened it up, let in\nthe fresh air, rid it of the musty and deadening atmosphere which I have\nalways associated with churches. I wanted to see you, before I went\naway,\" she went on steadily, \"and when Eleanor mentioned that you were\ncoming to her house to-night, I asked her to invite me. Do you think me\nshameless?\"\n\nThe emphasis of his gesture was sufficient. He could not trust himself\nto speak.\n\n\"Writing seemed so unsatisfactory, after what you had done for me, and I\nnever can express myself in writing. I seem to congeal.\"\n\n\"After what I have done for you!\" he exclaimed: \"What can I have done?\"\n\n\"You have done more than you know,\" she answered, in a low voice.\n\"More, I think, than I know. How are such things to be measured, put\ninto words? You have effected some change in me which defies analysis,\na change of attitude,--to attempt to dogmatize it would ruin it. I\nprefer to leave it undefined--not even to call it an acquisition of\nfaith. I have faith,\" she said, simply, \"in what you have become, and\nwhich has made you dare, superbly, to cast everything away. . .\nIt is that, more than anything you have said. What you are.\"\n\nFor the instant he lost control of himself.\n\n\"What you are,\" he replied. \"Do you realize--can you ever realize what\nyour faith in me has been to me?\"\n\nShe appeared to ignore this.\n\n\"I did not mean to say that you have not made many things clear, which\nonce were obscure, as I wrote you. You have convinced me that true\nbelief, for instance, is the hardest thing in the world, the denial of\npractically all these people, who profess to believe, represent. The\nmajority of them insist that humanity is not to be trusted. . .\"\n\nThey had reached, in an incredibly brief time, the corner of Park Street.\n\n\"When are you leaving?\" he asked, in a voice that sounded harsh in his\nown ears.\n\n\"Come!\" she said gently, \"I'm not going in yet, for a while.\"\n\nThe Park lay before them, an empty, garden filled with checquered light\nand shadows under the moon. He followed her across the gravel,\nglistening with dew, past the statue of the mute statesman with arm\nupraised, into pastoral stretches--a delectable country which was theirs\nalone. He did not take it in, save as one expression of the breathing\nwoman at his side. He was but partly conscious of a direction he had not\nchosen. His blood throbbed violently, and a feeling of actual physical\nfaintness was upon him. He was being led, helplessly, all volition gone,\nand the very idea of resistance became chimerical . . . .\n\nThere was a seat under a tree, beside a still lake burnished by the moon.\nIt seemed as though he could not bear the current of her touch, and yet\nthe thought of its removal were less bearable . . . For she had put\nher own hand out, not shyly, but with a movement so fraught with grace,\nso natural that it was but the crowning bestowal.\n\n\"Alison!\" he cried, \"I can't ask it of you. I have no right--\"\n\n\"You're not asking it,\" she answered. \"It is I who am asking it.\"\n\n\"But I have no future--I may be an outcast to-morrow. I have nothing to\noffer you.\" He spoke more firmly now, more commandingly.\n\n\"Don't you see, dear, that it is just because your future as obscure that\nI can do this? You never would have done it, I know,--and I couldn't\nface that. Don't you understand that I am demanding the great\nsacrifice?\"\n\n\"Sacrifice!\" he repeated. His fingers turned, and closed convulsively on\nhers.\n\n\"Yes, sacrifice,\" she said gently. \"Isn't it the braver thing?\"\n\nStill he failed to catch her meaning.\n\n\"Braver,\" she explained, with her wonderful courage, \"braver if I love\nyou, if I need you, if I cannot do without you.\"\n\nHe took her in his arms, crushing her to him in his strength, in one\nineffable brief moment finding her lips, inhaling the faint perfume of\nher smooth akin. Her lithe figure lay passively against him, in\nmarvellous, unbelievable surrender.\n\n\"I see what you mean,\" he said, at length, \"I should have been a coward.\nBut I could not be sure that you loved me.\"\n\nSo near was her face that he could detect, even under the obscurity of\nthe branches, a smile.\n\n\"And so I was reduced to this! I threw my pride to the winds,\" she\nwhispered. \"But I don't care. I was determined, selfishly, to take\nhappiness.\"\n\n\"And to give it,\" he added, bending down to her. The supreme quality of\nits essence was still to be doubted, a bright star-dust which dazzled\nhim, to evaporate before his waking eyes. And, try as he would, he\ncould not realize to the full depth the boy of contact with a being whom,\nby discipline, he had trained his mind to look upon as the unattainable.\nThey had spoken of the future, yet in these moments any consideration of\nit was blotted out. . . It was only by degrees that he collected\nhimself sufficiently to be able to return to it. . . Alison took up\nthe thread.\n\n\"Surely,\" she said, \"sacrifice is useless unless it means something,\nunless it be a realization. It must be discriminating. And we should\nboth of us have remained incomplete if we had not taken--this. You would\nalways, I think, have been the one man for me,--but we should have lost\ntouch.\" He felt her tremble. \"And I needed you. I have needed you all\nmy life--one in whom h might have absolute faith. That is my faith, of\nwhich I could not tell you awhile ago. Is it--sacrilegious?\"\n\nShe looked up at him. He shook his head, thinking of his own. It seemed\nthe very distillation of the divine. \"All my life,\" she went on, \"I have\nbeen waiting for the one who would risk everything. Oh, if you had\nfaltered the least little bit, I don't know what I should have done.\nThat would have destroyed what was left of me, put out, I think, the\nflickering fire that remained, instead of fanning it into flame. You\ncannot know how I watched you, how I prayed! I think it was prayer--I am\nsure it was. And it was because you did not falter, because you risked\nall, that you gained me. You have gained only what you yourself made,\nmore than I ever was, more than I ever expected to be.\"\n\n\"Alison!\" he remonstrated, \"you mustn't say that.\"\n\nShe straightened up and gazed at him, taking one of his hands in her\nlithe fingers.\n\n\"Oh, but I must! It is the truth. I felt that you cared--women are\nsurer in such matters than men. I must conceal nothing from you--nothing\nof my craftiness. Women are crafty, you know. And suppose you fail?\nAh, I do not mean failure--you cannot fail, now. You have put yourself\nforever beyond failure. But what I mean is, suppose you were compelled\nto leave St. John's, and I came to you then as I have come now, and\nbegged to take my place beside you? I was afraid to risk it. I was\nafraid you would not take me, even now, to-night. Do you realize how\naustere you are at times, how you have frightened me?\"\n\n\"That I should ever have done that!\" he said.\n\n\"When I looked at you in the pulpit you seemed so far from me, I could\nscarcely bear it. As if I had no share in you, as if you had already\ngone to a place beyond, where I could not go, where I never could. Oh,\nyou will take me with you, now,--you won't leave me behind!\"\n\nTo this cry every fibre of his soul responded. He had thought himself,\nin these minutes, to have known all feelings, all thrills, but now,\nas he gathered her to him again, he was to know still another, the most\nexquisite of all. That it was conferred upon him to give this woman\nprotection, to shield and lift her, inspire her as she inspired him--this\nconsciousness was the most exquisite of all, transcending all conception\nof the love of woman. And the very fulness of her was beyond him. A\nlifetime were insufficient to exhaust her . . . .\n\n\"I wanted to come to you now, John. I want to share your failure, if it\ncomes--all your failures. Because they will be victories--don't you see?\nI have never been able to achieve that kind of victory--real victory, by\nmyself. I have always succumbed, taken the baser, the easier thing.\"\nHer cheek was wet. \"I wasn't strong enough, by myself, and I never knew\nthe stronger one . . . .\n\n\"See what my trust in you has been! I knew that you would not refuse me\nin spite of the fact that the world may misunderstand, may sneer at your\ntaking me. I knew that you were big enough even for that, when you\nunderstood it, coming from me. I wanted to be with you, now, that we\nmight fight it out together.\"\n\n\"What have I done to deserve so priceless a thing?\" he asked.\n\nShe smiled at him again, her lip trembling.\n\n\"Oh, I'm not priceless, I'm only real, I'm only human--human and tired.\nYou are so strong, you can't know how tired. Have you any idea why I\ncame out here, this summer? It was because I was desperate--because I\nhad almost decided to marry some one else.\"\n\nShe felt him start.\n\n\"I was afraid of it;\" he said.\n\n\"Were you? Did you think, did you wonder a little about me?\" There was\na vibrant note of triumph to which he reacted. She drew away from him.\na little. \"Perhaps, when you know how sordid my life has been, you won't\nwant me.\"\n\n\"Is--Is that your faith, Alison?\" he demanded. \"God forbid! You have\ncome to a man who also has confessions to make.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am glad. I want to know all of you--all, do you understand? That\nwill bring us even closer together. And it was one thing I felt about\nyou in the beginning, that day in the garden, that you had had much to\nconquer--more than most men. It was a part of your force and of your\nknowledge of life. You were not a sexless ascetic who preached a mere\nneutral goodness. Does that shock you?\"\n\nHe smiled in turn.\n\n\"I went away from here, as I once told you, full of a high resolution not\nto trail the honour of my art--if I achieved art--in the dust. But I\nhave not only trailed my art--I trailed myself. In New York I became\ncontaminated, --the poison of the place, of the people with whom I came in\ncontact, got into my blood. Little by little I yielded--I wanted so to\nsucceed, to be able to confound those who had doubted and ridiculed me!\nI wasn't content to wait to deny myself for the ideal. Success was in\nthe air. That was the poison, and I only began to realize it after it\nwas too late.\n\n\"Please don't think I am asking pity--I feel that you must know. From\nthe very first my success--which was really failure--began to come in the\nwrong way. As my father's daughter I could not be obscure. I was sought\nout, I was what was called picturesque, I suppose. The women petted me,\nalthough some of them hated me, and I had a fascination for a certain\nkind of men--the wrong kind. I began going to dinners, house parties,\nto recognize, that advantages came that way . . . . It seemed quite\nnatural. It was what many others of my profession tried to do, and they\nenvied me my opportunities.\n\n\"I ought to say, in justice to myself, that I was not in the least\ncynical about it. I believed I was clinging to the ideal of art, and\nthat all I wanted was a chance. And the people I went with had the same\ncharacteristics, only intensified, as those I had known here. Of course\nI was actually no better than the women who were striving frivolously to\nget away from themselves, and the men who were fighting to get money.\nOnly I didn't know it.\n\n\"Well, my chance came at last. I had done several little things, when an\nelderly man who is tremendously rich, whose name you would recognize if I\nmentioned it, gave me an order. For weeks, nearly every day, he came to\nmy studio for tea, to talk over the plans. I was really unsophisticated\nthen--but I can see now--well, that the garden was a secondary\nconsideration . . . . And the fact that I did it for him gave me a\nstanding I should not otherwise have had . . . . Oh, it is sickening\nto look back upon, to think what an idiot I was in how little I saw....\n\n\"That garden launched me, and I began to have more work than I could do.\nI was conscientious about it tried--tried to make every garden better\nthan the last. But I was a young woman, unconventionally living alone,\nand by degrees the handicap of my sex was brought home to me. I did not\nfeel the pressure at first, and then--I am ashamed to say--it had in it\nan element of excitement, a sense of power. The poison was at work. I\nwas amused. I thought I could carry it through, that the world had\nadvanced sufficiently for a woman to do anything if she only had the\ncourage. And I believed I possessed a true broadness of view, and could\nimpress it, so far as I was concerned, on others . . . .\n\n\"As I look back upon it all, I believe my reputation for coldness saved\nme, yet it was that very reputation which increased the pressure, and\nsometimes I was fairly driven into a corner. It seemed to madden some\nmen--and the disillusionments began to come. Of course it was my fault\n--I don't pretend to say it wasn't. There were many whom, instinctively,\nI was on my guard against, but some I thought really nice, whom I\ntrusted, revealed a side I had not suspected. That was the terrible\nthing! And yet I held to my ideal, tattered as it was. . . \"\n\nAlison was silent a moment, still clinging to his hand, and when she\nspoke again it was with a tremor of agitation.\n\n\"It is hard, to tell you this, but I wish you to know. At last I met a\nman, comparatively young, who was making his own way in New York,\nachieving a reputation as a lawyer. Shall I tell you that I fell in love\nwith him? He seemed to bring a new freshness into my life when I was\nbeginning to feel the staleness of it. Not that I surrendered at once,\nbut the reservations of which I was conscious at the first gradually\ndisappeared--or rather I ignored them. He had charm, a magnificent\nself-confidence, but I think the liberality of the opinions he expressed,\nin regard to women, most appealed to me. I was weak on that side, and I\nhave often wondered whether he knew it. I believed him incapable of a\ngreat refusal.\n\n\"He agreed, if I consented to marry him, that I should have my freedom\n--freedom to live in my own life and to carry on my profession.\nFortunately, the engagement was never announced, never even suspected.\nOne day he hinted that I should return to my father for a month or two\nbefore the wedding . . . . The manner in which he said it suddenly\nturned me cold. Oh,\" Alison exclaimed, \"I was quite willing to go back,\nto pay my father a visit, as I had done nearly every year, but--how can I\ntell you?--he could not believe that I had definitely given up-my\nfather's money . . . .\n\n\"I sat still and looked at him, I felt as if I were frozen, turned to\nstone. And after a long while, since I would not speak to him, he went\nout. . . Three months later he came back and said that I had\nmisunderstood him, that he couldn't live without me. I sent him away....\nOnly the other day he married Amy Grant, one of my friends . . . .\n\n\"Well, after that, I was tired--so tired! Everything seemed to go out of\nlife. It wasn't that I loved him any longer,--all had been crushed. But\nthe illusion was gone, and I saw myself as I was. And for the first time\nin my life I felt defenceless, helpless. I wanted refuge. Did you ever\nhear of Jennings Howe?\"\n\n\"The architect?\"\n\nAlison nodded. \"Of course you must have--he is so well known. He has\nbeen a widower for several years. He liked my work, saw its defects,\nand was always frank about them, and I designed a good many gardens in\nconnection with his houses. He himself is above all things an artist,\nand he fell into the habit of coming to my studio and giving me friendly\nadvice, in the nicest way. He seemed to understand that I was going\nthrough some sort of a crisis. He called it 'too much society.' And\nthen, without any warning, he asked me to marry him.\n\n\"That is why I came out here--to think it over. I didn't love him, and I\ntold him so, but I respected him.\n\n\"He never compromised in his art, and I have known him over and over to\nrefuse houses because certain conditions were stipulated. To marry him\nwas an acknowledgment of defeat. I realized that. But I had come to the\nextremity where I wanted peace--peace and protection. I wanted to put\nmyself irrevocably beyond the old life, which simply could not have gone\non, and I saw myself in the advancing years becoming tawdry and worn,\nlosing little by little what I had gained at a price.\n\n\"So I came here--to reflect, to see, as it were, if I could find\nsomething left in me to take hold of, to build upon, to begin over again,\nperhaps, by going back to the old associations. I could think of no\nbetter place, and I knew that my father would, be going away after a few\nweeks, and that I should be lone, yet with an atmosphere back of me,--my\nold atmosphere. That was why I went to church the first Sunday, in order\nto feel more definitely that atmosphere, to summon up more completely the\nimage of my mother. More and more, as the years have passed, I have\nthought of her in moments of trouble. I have recovered her as I never\nhad hoped to do in Mr. Bentley. Isn't it strange,\" she exclaimed\nwonderingly, \"that he should have come into both our lives, with such an\ninfluence, at this time?\"\n\n\"And then I met you, talked to you that afternoon in the garden. Shall I\nmake a complete confession? I wrote to Jennings Howe that very week that\nI could not marry him.\"\n\n\"You knew!\" Hodder exclaimed: \"You knew then?\"\n\n\"Ah, I can't tell what I knew--or when. I knew, after I had seen you,\nthat I couldn't marry him! Isn't that enough?\"\n\nHe drew in his breath deeply.\n\n\"I should be less than a man if I refused to take you, Alison. And--no\nmatter what happens, I can and will find some honest work to support you.\nBut oh, my dear, when I think of it, the nobility and generosity of what\nyou have done appalls me.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" she protested, \"you mustn't say that! I needed you more than\nyou need me. And haven't we both discovered the world, and renounced it?\nI can at least go so far as to say that, with all my heart. And isn't\nmarriage truer and higher when man and wife start with difficulties and\nproblems to solve together? It is that thought that brings me the\ngreatest joy, that I may be able to help you . . . . Didn't you need\nme, just a little?\"\n\n\"Now that I have you, I am unable to think of the emptiness which might\nhave been. You came to me, like Beatrice, when I had lost my way in the\ndarkness of the wood. And like Beatrice, you showed me the path, and\nhell and heaven.\"\n\n\"Oh, you would have found the path without me. I cannot claim that.\nI saw from the first that you were destined to find it. And, unlike\nBeatrice, I too was lost, and it was you who lifted me up. You mustn't\nidealize me.\" . . . She stood up. \"Come!\" she said. He too stood,\ngazing at her, and she lifted her hands to his shoulders . . . . They\nmoved out from under the tree and walked for a while in silence across\nthe dew-drenched grass, towards Park Street. The moon, which had ridden\nover a great space in the sky, hung red above the blackness of the forest\nto the west.\n\n\"Do you remember when we were here together, the day I met Mr. Bentley?\nAnd you never would have spoken!\"\n\n\"How could I, Alison?\" he asked.\n\n\"No, you couldn't. And yet--you would have let me go!\"\n\nHe put his arm in hers, and drew her towards him.\n\n\"I must talk to your father,\" he said, \"some day--soon. I ought to tell\nhim--of our intentions. We cannot go on like this.\"\n\n\"No,\" she agreed, \"I realize it. And I cannot stay, much longer, in Park\nStreet. I must go back to New York, until you send for me, dear. And\nthere are things I must do. Do you know, even though I antagonize him\nso--my father, I mean--even though he suspects and bitterly resents any\ninterest in you, my affection for you, and that I have lingered because\nof you, I believe, in his way, he has liked to have me here.\"\n\n\"I can understand it,\" Hodder said.\n\n\"It's because you are bigger than I, although he has quarrelled with you\nso bitterly. I don't know what definite wrongs he has done to other\npersons. I don't wish to know. I don't ask you to tell me what passed\nbetween you that night. Once you said that you had an affection for him\n--that he was lonely. He is lonely. In these last weeks, in spite of\nhis anger, I can see that he suffers terribly. It is a tragedy, because\nhe will never give in.\"\n\n\"It is a tragedy.\" Hodder's tone was agitated.\n\n\"I wonder if he realizes a little\" she began, and paused. \"Now that\nPreston has come home--\"\n\n\"Your brother?\" Hodder exclaimed.\n\n\"Yes. I forgot to tell you. I don't know why he came,\" she faltered.\n\"I suppose he has got into some new trouble. He seems changed. I can't\ndescribe it now, but I will tell you about it . . . . It's the first\ntime we've all three been together since my mother died, for Preston\nwasn't back from college when I went to Paris to study . . . .\"\n\nThey stood together on the pavement before the massive house, fraught\nwith so many and varied associations for Hodder. And as he looked up at\nit, his eye involuntarily rested upon the windows of the boy's room where\nEldon Parr had made his confession. Alison startled him by pronouncing\nhis name, which came with such unaccustomed sweetness from her lips.\n\"You will write me to-morrow,\" she said, \"after you have seen the bishop?\"\n\n\"Yes, at once. You mustn't let it worry you.\"\n\n\"I feel as if I had cast off that kind of worry forever. It is only\n--the other worries from which we do not escape, from which we do not wish\nto escape.\"\n\nWith a wonderful smile she had dropped his hands and gone in at the\nentrance, when a sound made them turn, the humming of a motor. And even\nas they looked it swung into Park Street.\n\n\"It's a taxicab!\" she said. As she spoke it drew up almost beside them,\ninstead of turning in at the driveway, the door opened, and a man\nalighted.\n\n\"Preston!\" Alison exclaimed.\n\nHe started, turning from the driver, whom he was about to pay. As for\nHodder, he was not only undergoing a certain shock through the sudden\ncontact, at such a moment, with Alison's brother: there was an additional\nshock that this was Alison's brother and Eldon Parr's son. Not that his\nappearance was shocking, although the well-clad, athletic figure was\ngrowing a trifle heavy, and the light from the side lamps of the car\nrevealed dissipation in a still handsome face. The effect was a subtler\none, not to be analyzed, and due to a multitude of preconceptions.\n\nAlison came forward.\n\n\"This is Mr. Hodder, Preston,\" she said simply.\n\nFor a moment Preston continued to stare at the rector without speaking.\nSuddenly he put out his hand.\n\n\"Mr. Hodder, of St. John's?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Hodder. His surprise deepened to perplexity at the warmth\nof the handclasp that followed.\n\nA smile that brought back vividly to Hodder the sunny expression of the\nschoolboy in the picture lightened the features of the man.\n\n\"I'm very glad to see you,\" he said, in a tone that left no doubt of its\ngenuine quality.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Hodder replied, meeting his eye with kindness, yet with a\nscrutiny that sought to penetrate the secret of an unexpected cordiality.\n\"I, too, have hoped to see you.\"\n\nAlison, who stood by wondering, felt a meaning behind the rector's words.\nShe pressed his hand as he bade her, once more, good night.\n\n\"Won't you take my taxicab?\" asked Preston. \"It is going down town\nanyway.\"\n\n\"I think I'd better stick to the street cars,\" Hodder said. His refusal\nwas not ungraceful, but firm. Preston did not insist.\n\nIn spite of the events of that evening, which he went over again and\nagain as the midnight car carried him eastward, in spite of a new-born\nhappiness the actuality of which was still difficult to grasp, Hodder\nwas vaguely troubled when he thought of Preston Parr.","title":"The Inside of the Cup \u2014 Volume 07","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":24232}