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+The Project Gutenberg Ebook The Inside of the Cup, v8, by Winston Churchill
+WC#26 in our series by Winston Churchill (USA author, not Sir Winston)
+
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+Title: The Inside of the Cup, Volume 8.
+
+Author: Winston Churchill (USA author, not Sir Winston Churchill)
+
+Release Date: March, 2004  [EBook #5363]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 24, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INSIDE OF THE CUP, V8, BY CHURCHILL ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE INSIDE OF THE CUP
+
+By Winston Churchill
+
+
+
+Volume 8.
+
+XXVII.    RETRIBUTION
+XXVIII.   LIGHT
+
+
+
+RETRIBUTION
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+RETRIBUTION
+
+
+I
+
+The Bishop's House was a comfortable, double dwelling of a smooth,
+bright red brick and large, plate-glass windows, situated in a plot
+at the western end of Waverley Place.  It had been bought by the Diocese
+in the nineties, and was representative of that transitional period in
+American architecture when the mansard roof had been repudiated, when
+as yet no definite types had emerged to take its place.  The house had
+pointed gables, and a tiny and utterly useless porch that served only to
+darken the front door, made of heavy pieces of wood fantastically curved.
+
+It was precisely ten o'clock in the morning when Hodder rang the bell and
+was shown into the ample study which he had entered on other and less
+vital occasions.  He found difficulty in realizing that this pleasant
+room, lined with well-worn books and overlooking a back lawn where the
+clothes of the episcopal family hung in the yellow autumn sun, was to be
+his judgment seat, whence he might be committed to trial for heresy.
+
+And this was the twentieth century!  The full force of the preposterous
+fact smote him, and a consciousness of the distance he himself had
+travelled since the comparatively recent days of his own orthodoxy.
+And suddenly he was full again of a resentful impatience, not only that
+he should be called away from his labours, his cares, the strangers who
+were craving his help, to answer charges of such an absurd triviality,
+but that the performance of the great task to which he had set his hand,
+with God's help, should depend upon it.  Would his enemies be permitted
+to drive him out thus easily?
+
+The old bishop came in, walking by the aid of a cane.  He smiled at
+Hodder, who greeted him respectfully, and bidding him sit down, took a
+chair himself behind his writing table, from whence he gazed awhile
+earnestly and contemplatively at the rugged features and strong shoulders
+of the rector of St. John's.  The effect of the look was that of a visual
+effort to harmonize the man with the deed he had done, the stir he had
+created in the city and the diocese; to readjust impressions.
+
+A hint of humour crept into the bishop's blue eyes, which were watery,
+yet strong, with heavy creases in the corners.  He indicated by a little
+gesture three bundles of envelopes, bound by rubber bands, on the corner
+of his blotter.
+
+"Hodder," he said, "see what a lot of trouble you have made for me in my
+old age!  All those are about you."
+
+The rector's expression could not have been deemed stern, but it had met
+the bishop's look unflinchingly.  Now it relaxed into a responding smile,
+which was not without seriousness.
+
+"I am sorry, sir," Hodder answered, "to have caused you any worry--or
+inconvenience."
+
+"Perhaps," said the bishop, "I have had too much smooth sailing for a
+servant of Christ.  Indeed, I have come to that conclusion."
+
+Hodder did not reply.  He was moved, even more by the bishop's manner
+and voice than his words.  And the opening to their conversation was
+unexpected.  The old man put on his spectacles, and drew from the top
+of one of the bundles a letter.
+
+"This is from one of your vestrymen, Mr. Gordon Atterbury," he said, and
+proceeded to read it, slowly.  When he had finished he laid it down.
+
+"Is that, according to your recollection, Mr. Hodder, a fairly accurate
+summary of the sermon you gave when you resumed the pulpit at the end of
+the summer?"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the rector, "it is surprisingly accurate, with the
+exception of two or three inferences which I shall explain at the proper
+moment."
+
+"Mr. Atterbury is to be congratulated on his memory," the bishop observed
+a little dryly.  "And he has saved me the trouble of reading more.  Now
+what are the inferences to which you object?"
+
+Hodder stated them.  "The most serious one," he added, "is that which he
+draws from my attitude on the virgin birth.  Mr. Atterbury insists, like
+others who cling to that dogma, that I have become what he vaguely calls
+an Unitarian.  He seems incapable of grasping my meaning, that the only
+true God the age knows, the world has ever known, is the God in Christ,
+is the Spirit in Christ, and is there not by any material proof, but
+because we recognize it spiritually.  And that doctrine and dogma,
+ancient speculations as to how, definitely, that spirit came to be in
+Christ, are fruitless and mischievous to-day.  Mr. Atterbury and others
+seem actually to resent my identification of our Lord's Spirit with the
+social conscience as well as the individual conscience of our time."
+
+The bishop nodded.
+
+"Hodder," he demanded abruptly, leaning forward over his desk, "how did
+this thing happen?"
+
+"You mean, sir--"
+
+There was, in the bishop's voice, a note almost pathetic. "Oh, I do not
+mean to ask you anything you may deem too personal.  And God forbid, as
+I look at you, as I have known you, that I should doubt your sincerity.
+I am not your inquisitor, but your bishop and your friend, and I am
+asking for your confidence.  Six months ago you were, apparently, one of
+the most orthodox rectors in the diocese.  I recognize that you are not
+an impulsive, sensational man, and I am all the more anxious to learn
+from your own lips something of the influences, of the processes which
+have changed you, which have been strong enough to impel you to risk the
+position you have achieved."
+
+By this unlooked-for appeal Hodder was not only disarmed, but smitten
+with self-reproach at the thought of his former misjudgment and
+underestimation of the man in whose presence he sat.  And it came over
+him, not only the extent to which, formerly, he had regarded the bishop
+as too tolerant and easygoing, but the fact that he had arrived here
+today prepared to find in his superior anything but the attitude he was
+showing.  Considering the bishop's age, Hodder had been ready for a lack
+of understanding of the step he had taken, even for querulous reproaches
+and rebuke.
+
+He had, therefore, to pull himself together, to adjust himself to the
+unexpected greatness of soul with which he was being received before he
+began to sketch the misgivings he had felt from the early days of his
+rectorship of St. John's; the helplessness and failure which by degrees
+had come over him.  He related how it had become apparent to him that by
+far the greater part of his rich and fashionable congregation were
+Christians only in name, who kept their religion in a small and
+impervious compartment where it did not interfere with their lives.
+He pictured the yearning and perplexity of those who had come to him for
+help, who could not accept the old explanations, and had gone away empty;
+and he had not been able to make Christians of the poor who attended the
+parish house.  Finally, trusting in the bishop's discretion, he spoke of
+the revelations he had unearthed in Dalton Street, and how these had
+completely destroyed his confidence in the Christianity he had preached,
+and how he had put his old faith to the test of unprejudiced modern
+criticism, philosophy, and science.  .  .
+
+The bishop listened intently, his head bent, his eyes on he rector.
+
+"And you have come out--convinced?"  he asked tremulously.  "Yes, yes,
+I see you have.  It is enough."
+
+He relapsed into thought, his wrinkled hand lying idly on the table.
+
+"I need not tell you, my friend," he resumed at length, "that a great
+deal of pressure has been brought to bear upon me in this matter, more
+than I have ever before experienced.  You have mortally offended, among
+others, the most powerful layman in the diocese, Mr. Parr, who complains
+that you have presumed to take him to task concerning his private
+affairs."
+
+"I told him," answered Holder, "that so long as he continued to live the
+life he leads, I could not accept his contributions to St. John's."
+
+"I am an old man," said the bishop, "and whatever usefulness I have had
+is almost finished.  But if I were young to-day, I should pray God for
+the courage and insight you have shown, and I am thankful to have lived
+long enough to have known you.  It has, at least, been given one to
+realize that times have changed, that we are on the verge of a mighty
+future.  I will be frank to say that ten years ago, if this had happened,
+I should have recommended you for trial.  Now I can only wish you God-
+speed.  I, too, can see the light, my friend.  I can see, I think, though
+dimly, the beginnings of a blending of all sects, of all religions in the
+increasing vision of the truth revealed in Jesus Christ, stripped, as you
+say, of dogma, of fruitless attempts at rational explanation.  In Japan
+and China, in India and Persia, as well as in Christian countries, it is
+coming, coming by some working of the Spirit the mystery of which is
+beyond us.  And nations and men who even yet know nothing of the Gospels
+are showing a willingness to adopt what is Christ's, and the God of
+Christ."
+
+Holder was silent, from sheer inability to speak.
+
+"If you had needed an advocate with me," the bishop continued, "you could
+not have had one to whose counsel I would more willingly have listened,
+than that of Horace Bentley.  He wrote asking to come and see me, but I
+went to him in Dalton Street the day I returned.  And it gives me
+satisfaction, Mr. Holder, to confess to you freely that he has taught me,
+by his life, more of true Christianity than I have learned in all my
+experience elsewhere."
+
+"I had thought," exclaimed the rector, wonderingly, "that I owed him more
+than any other man."
+
+"There are many who think that--hundreds, I should say," the bishop
+replied .  .  .  .  "Eldon Parr ruined him, drove him from the church....
+It is strange how, outside of the church, his influence has silently and
+continuously grown until it has borne fruit in--this.  Even now," he
+added after a pause, "the cautiousness, the dread of change which comes
+with old age might, I think, lead me to be afraid of it if I--didn't
+perceive behind it the spirit of Horace Bentley."
+
+It struck Holder, suddenly, what an unconscious but real source of
+confidence this thought had likewise been to him.  He spoke of it.
+
+"It is not that I wouldn't trust you," the bishop went on.  "I have
+watched you, I have talked to Asa Waring, I have read the newspapers.
+In spite of it all, you have kept your head, you have not compromised the
+dignity of the Church.  But oh, my friend, I beg you to bear in mind that
+you are launched upon deep waters, that you have raised up many enemies
+--enemies of Christ--who seek to destroy you.  You are still young.  And
+the uncompromising experiment to which you are pledged, of freeing your
+church, of placing her in the position of power and influence in the
+community which is rightfully hers, is as yet untried.  And no stone will
+be left unturned to discourage and overcome you.  You have faith,--you
+have made me feel it as you sat here,--a faith which will save you from
+bitterness in personal defeat.  You may not reap the victory, or even see
+it in your lifetime.  But of this I am sure, that you will be able to
+say, with Paul, "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the
+increase."  Whatever happens, you may count upon my confidence and
+support.  I can only wish that I were younger, that my arm were stronger,
+and that I had always perceived the truth as clearly as I see it now."
+
+Holder had risen involuntarily while these words were being spoken.  They
+were indeed a benediction, and the intensity of his feeling warned him of
+the inadequacy of any reply.  They were pronounced in sorrow, yet in
+hope, and they brought home to him, sharply, the nobility of the bishop's
+own sacrifice.
+
+"And you, sir?" he asked.  "Ah," answered the bishop, "with this I shall
+have had my life.  I am content.  .  .  ."
+
+"You will come to me again, Hodder?  some other day," he said,
+after an interval, "that we may talk over the new problems.  They are
+constructive, creative, and I am anxious to hear how you propose to meet
+them.  For one thing, to find a new basis for the support of such a
+parish.  I understand they have deprived you of your salary."
+
+"I have enough to live on, for a year or so," replied the rector,
+quickly.  "Perhaps more."
+
+"I'm afraid," said the bishop, with a smile in his old eyes, "that you
+will need it, my friend.  But who can say?  You have strength, you have
+confidence, and God is with you."
+
+
+
+II
+
+Life, as Hodder now grasped it, was a rapidly whirling wheel which gave
+him no chance to catch up with the impressions and experiences through
+which it was dragging him.  Here, for instance, were two far-reaching
+and momentous events, one crowding upon the other, and not an hour for
+reflection, realization, or adjustment!  He had, indeed, after his return
+from the bishop's, snatched a few minutes to write Alison the unexpected
+result of that interview.  But even as he wrote and rang for a messenger
+to carry the note to Park Street, he was conscious of an effort to seize
+upon and hold the fact that the woman he had so intensely desired was now
+his helpmate; and had, of her own freewill, united herself with him.  A
+strong sense of the dignity of their relationship alone prevented his
+calling her on the telephone--as it doubtless had prevented her.  While
+she remained in her father's house, he could not.  .  .
+
+In the little room next to the office several persons were waiting to see
+him.  But as he went downstairs he halted on the, landing, his hand going
+to his forehead, a reflex movement significant of a final attempt to
+achieve the hitherto unattainable feat of imagining her as his wife.
+If he might only speak to her again--now, this morning!  And yet he
+knew that he needed no confirmation.  The reality was there, in the
+background; and though refusing to come forward to be touched, it had
+already grafted itself as an actual and vital part of his being, never
+to be eliminated.
+
+Characteristically perfecting his own ideal, she had come to him in the
+hour when his horizon had been most obscure.  And he experienced now an
+exultation, though solemn and sacred, that her faith had so far been
+rewarded in the tidings he now confided to the messenger.  He was not,
+as yet, to be driven out from the task, to be deprived of the talent,
+the opportunity intrusted to him by Lord--the emancipation of the parish
+of St. John's.
+
+The first to greet him, when he entered his office, was one who, unknown
+to himself, had been fighting the battle of the God in Christ, and who
+now, thanks to John Hodder, had identified the Spirit as the transforming
+force.  Bedloe Hubbell had come to offer his services to the Church.  The
+tender was unqualified.
+
+"I should even be willing, Mr. Hodder," he said with a smile, "to venture
+occasionally into a pulpit.  You have not only changed my conception of
+religion, but you have made it for me something which I can now speak
+about naturally."
+
+Hodder was struck by the suggestion.
+
+"Ah, we shall need the laymen in the pulpits, Mr. Hubbell," he said
+quickly.  "A great spiritual movement must be primarily a lay movement.
+And I promise you you shall not lack for opportunity."
+
+
+
+III
+
+At nine o'clock that evening, when a reprieve came, Hodder went out.
+Anxiety on the score of Kate Marcy, as well as a desire to see Mr.
+Bentley and tell him of the conversation with the bishop, directed his
+steps toward Dalton Street.  And Hodder had, indeed, an intention of
+confiding to his friend, as one eminently entitled to it, the news of
+his engagement to Alison Parr.
+
+Nothing, however, had been heard of Kate.  She was not in Dalton Street,
+Mr. Bentley feared.  The search of Gratz, the cabinet-maker, had been
+fruitless.  And Sally Grover had even gone to see the woman in the
+hospital, whom Kate had befriended, in the hope of getting a possible
+clew.  They sat close together before the fire in Mr. Bentley's
+comfortable library, debating upon the possibility of other methods of
+procedure, when a carriage was heard rattling over the pitted asphalt
+without.  As it pulled up at the curb, a silence fell between them.  The
+door-bell rang.
+
+Holder found himself sitting erect, rigidly attentive, listening to the
+muffled sound of a woman's voice in the entry.  A few moments later came
+a knock at the library door, and Sam entered.  The old darky was plainly
+frightened.
+
+"It's Miss Kate, Marse Ho'ace, who you bin tryin' to fin'," he stammered.
+
+Holder sprang to his feet and made his way rapidly around the table,
+where he stood confronting the woman in the doorway.  There she was,
+perceptibly swaying, as though the floor under her were rocked by an
+earthquake.  Her handsome face was white as chalk, her pupils widened in
+terror.  It was curious, at such an instant, that he should have taken in
+her costume,--yet it was part of the mystery.  She wore a new, close-
+fitting, patently expensive suit of dark blue cloth and a small hat,
+which were literally transforming in their effect, demanding a palpable
+initial effort of identification.
+
+He seized her by the arm.
+
+"What is it?"  he demanded.
+
+"Oh, my God!" she cried.  "He--he's out there--in the carriage."
+
+She leaned heavily against the doorpost, shivering .  .  .  .  Holder saw
+Sally Grover coming down the stairs.
+
+"Take her," he said, and went out of the front door, which Sam had left
+open.  Mr. Bentley was behind him.
+
+The driver had descended from the box and was peering into the darkness
+of the vehicle when he heard them, and turned.  At sight of the tall
+clergyman, an expression of relief came into his face.
+
+"I don't like the looks of this, sir," he said.  "I thought he was pretty
+bad when I went to fetch him--"
+
+Holder pushed past him and looked into the carriage.  Leaning back,
+motionless, in the corner of the seat was the figure of a man.  For a
+terrible moment of premonition, of enlightenment, the rector gazed at it.
+
+"They sent for me from a family hotel in Ayers Street," the driver was
+explaining.  Mr. Bentley's voice interrupted him.
+
+"He must be brought in, at once.  Do you know where Dr. Latimer's office
+is, on Tower Street?"  he asked the man.  "Go there, and bring this
+doctor back with you as quickly as possible.  If he is not in, get
+another, physician."
+
+Between them, the driver and Holder got the burden out of the carriage
+and up the steps.  The light from the hallway confirmed the rector's
+fear.
+
+"It's Preston Parr," he said.
+
+The next moment was too dreadful for surprise, but never had the sense of
+tragedy so pierced the innermost depths of Holder's being as now, when
+Horace Bentley's calmness seemed to have forsaken him; and as he gazed
+down upon the features on the pillow, he wept .  .  .  .  Holder turned
+away.  Whatever memories those features evoked, memories of a past that
+still throbbed with life these were too sacred for intrusion.  The years
+of exile, of uncomplaining service to others in this sordid street and
+over the wide city had not yet sufficed to allay the pain, to heal the
+wound of youth.  Nay, loyalty had kept it fresh--a loyalty that was the
+handmaid of faith.  .  .
+
+The rector softly left the room, only to be confronted with another
+harrowing scene in the library, where a frantic woman was struggling in
+Sally Grover's grasp.  He went to her assistance.  .  .  Words of
+comfort, of entreaty were of no avail,--Kate Marcy did not seem to hear
+them.  Hers, in contrast to that other, was the unmeaning grief, the
+overwhelming sense of injustice of the child; and with her regained
+physical strength the two had all they could do to restrain her.
+
+"I will go to him," she sobbed, between her paroxysms, "you've got no
+right to keep me--he's mine .  .  .  he came back to me--he's all I ever
+had .  .  .  ."
+
+So intent were they that they did not notice Mr. Bentley standing beside
+them until they heard his voice.
+
+"What she says is true," he told them.  "Her place is in there.  Let her
+go."
+
+Kate Marcy raised her head at the words, and looked at him a strange,
+half-comprehending, half-credulous gaze.  They released her, helped her
+towards the bedroom, and closed the door gently behind her.  .  .  The
+three sat in silence until the carriage was heard returning, and the
+doctor entered.
+
+The examination was brief, and two words, laconically spoken, sufficed
+for an explanation--apoplexy, alcohol.  The prostrate, quivering woman
+was left where they had found her.
+
+Dr. Latimer was a friend of Mr. Bentley's, and betrayed no surprise at a
+situation which otherwise might have astonished him.  It was only when he
+learned the dead man's name, and his parentage, that he looked up quickly
+from his note book.
+
+"The matter can be arranged without a scandal," he said, after an
+instant.  "Can you tell me something of the circumstances?"
+
+It was Hodder who answered.
+
+"Preston Parr had been in love with this woman, and separated from her.
+She was under Mr. Bentley's care when he found her again, I infer, by
+accident.  From what the driver says, they were together in a hotel in
+Ayers Street, and he died after he had been put in a carriage.  In her
+terror, she was bringing him to Mr. Bentley."
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+"Poor woman!" he said unexpectedly.  "Will you be good enough to let Mr:
+Parr know that I will see him at his house, to-night?"  he added, as he
+took his departure.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Sally Grower went out with the physician, and it was Mr. Bentley who
+answered the question in the rector's mind, which he hesitated to ask.
+
+"Mr. Parr must come here," he said.
+
+As the rector turned, mechanically, to pick up his hat, Mr. Bentley added
+
+"You will come back, Hodder?"
+
+"Since you wish it, sir," the rector said.
+
+Once in the street, he faced a predicament, but swiftly decided that the
+telephone was impossible under the circumstances, that there could be no
+decent procedure without going himself to Park Street.  It was only a
+little after ten.  The electric car which he caught seemed to lag, the
+stops were interminable.  His thoughts flew hither and thither.  Should
+he try first to see Alison?  He was nearest to her now of all the world,
+and he could not suffer the thought of her having the news otherwise.
+Yes, he must tell her, since she knew nothing of the existence of Kate
+Marcy.
+
+Having settled that,--though the thought of the blow she was to receive
+lay like a weight on his heart,--Mr. Bentley's reason for summoning Eldon
+Parr to Dalton Street came to him.  That the feelings of Mr. Bentley
+towards the financier were those of Christian forgiveness was not
+for a moment to be doubted: but a meeting, particularly under such
+circumstances, could not but be painful indeed.  It must be, it was,
+Hodder saw, for Kate Marcy's sake; yes, and for Eldon Parr's as well,
+that he be given this opportunity to deal with the woman whom he had
+driven away from his son, and ruined.
+
+The moon, which had shed splendours over the world the night before,
+was obscured by a low-drifting mist as Hodder turned in between the
+ornamental lamps that marked the gateway of the Park Street mansion,
+and by some undiscerned thought--suggestion he pictured the heart-broken
+woman he had left beside the body of one who had been heir to all this
+magnificence.  Useless now, stone and iron and glass, pictures and
+statuary.  All the labour, all the care and cunning, all the stealthy
+planning to get ahead of others had been in vain!  What indeed were left
+to Eldon Parr!  It was he who needed pity,--not the woman who had sinned
+and had been absolved because of her great love; not the wayward, vice-
+driven boy who lay dead.  The very horror of what Eldon Parr was now to
+suffer turned Hodder cold as he rang the bell and listened for the soft
+tread of the servant who would answer his summons.
+
+The man who flung open the door knew him, and did not conceal his
+astonishment.
+
+"Will you take my card to Miss Parr," the rector said, "if she has not
+retired, and tell her I have a message?"
+
+"Miss Parr is still in the library, sir."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes, sir."  The man preceded him, but before his name had been announced
+Alison was standing, her book in her hand, gazing at him with startled
+eyes, his name rising, a low cry, to her lips.
+
+"John!"
+
+He took the book from her, gently, and held her hands.
+
+"Something has happened!" she said.  "Tell me--I can bear it."
+
+He saw instantly that her dread was for him, and it made his task the
+harder.
+
+It's your brother, Alison."
+
+"Preston!  What is it? He's done something----"
+
+Hodder shook his head.
+
+"He died--to-night.  He is at Mr. Bentley's."
+
+It was like her that she did not cry out, or even speak, but stood still,
+her hands tightening on his, her breast heaving.  She was not, he knew,
+a woman who wept easily, and her eyes were dry.  And he had it to be
+thankful for that it was given him to be with her, in this sacred
+relationship, at such a moment.  But even now, such was the mystery that
+ever veiled her soul, he could not read her feelings, nor know what these
+might be towards the brother whose death he announced.
+
+"I want to tell you, first, Alison, to prepare you," he said.
+
+Her silence was eloquent.  She looked up at him bravely, trustfully, in a
+way that made him wince.  Whatever the exact nature of her suffering, it
+was too deep for speech.  And yet she helped him, made it easier for him
+by reason of her very trust, once given not to be withdrawn.  It gave him
+a paradoxical understanding of her which was beyond definition.
+
+"You must know--you would have sometime to know that there was a woman he
+loved, whom he intended to marry--but she was separated from him.  She
+was not what is called a bad woman, she was a working girl.  I found her,
+this summer, and she told me the story, and she has been under the care
+of Mr. Bentley.  She disappeared two or three days ago.  Your brother met
+her again, and he was stricken with apoplexy while with her this evening.
+She brought him to Mr. Bentley's house."
+
+"My father--bought her and sent her away."
+
+"You knew?"
+
+"I heard a little about it at the time, by accident.  I have always
+remembered it .  .  .  .  I have always felt that something like this
+would happen."
+
+Her sense of fatality, another impression she gave of living in the
+deeper, instinctive currents of life, had never been stronger upon him
+than now. . . . She released his hands.
+
+"How strange," she said, "that the end should have come at Mr. Bentley's!
+He loved my mother--she was the only woman he ever loved."
+
+It came to Hodder as the completing touch of the revelation he had half
+glimpsed by the bedside.
+
+"Ah," he could not help exclaiming, "that explains much."
+
+She had looked at him again, through sudden tears, as though divining his
+reference to Mr. Bentley's grief, when a step make them turn.  Eldon Parr
+had entered the room.  Never, not even in that last interview, had his
+hardness seemed so concretely apparent as now.  Again, pity seemed never
+more out of place, yet pity was Hodder's dominant feeling as he met the
+coldness, the relentlessness of the glance.  The thing that struck him,
+that momentarily kept closed his lips, was the awful, unconscious
+timeliness of the man's entrance, and his unpreparedness to meet
+the blow that was to crush him.
+
+"May I ask, Mr. Hodder," he said, in an unemotional voice, "what you are
+doing in this house?"
+
+Still Hodder hesitated, an unwilling executioner.
+
+"Father," said Alison, "Mr. Hodder has come with a message."
+
+Never, perhaps, had Eldon Parr given such complete proof of his lack of
+spiritual intuition.  The atmosphere, charged with presage for him, gave
+him nothing.
+
+"Mr. Hodder takes a strange way of delivering it," was his comment.
+
+Mercy took precedence over her natural directness.  She laid her hand
+gently on his arm.  And she had, at that instant, no thought of the long
+years he had neglected her for her brother.
+
+"It's about--Preston," she said.
+
+"Preston!" The name came sharply from Eldon Parr's lips.  "What about
+him?  Speak, can't you?"
+
+"He died this evening," said Alison, simply.
+
+Hodder plainly heard the ticking of the clock on the mantel .  .  .  .
+And the drama that occurred was the more horrible because it was hidden;
+played, as it were, behind closed doors.  For the spectators, there was
+only the black wall, and the silence.  Eldon Parr literally did nothing,-
+made no gesture, uttered no cry.  The death, they knew, was taking place
+in his soul, yet the man stood before them, naturally, for what seemed an
+interminable time .  .  .  .
+
+"Where is he?"  he asked.
+
+"At Mr. Bentley's, in Dalton Street."  It was Alison who replied again.
+
+Even then he gave no sign that he read retribution in the coincidence,
+betrayed no agitation at the mention of a name which, in such a
+connection, might well have struck the terror of judgment into his heart.
+They watched him while, with a firm step, he crossed the room and pressed
+a button in the wall, and waited.
+
+"I want the closed automobile, at once," he said, when the servant came.
+
+"I beg pardon; sir, but I think Gratton has gone to bed.  He had no
+orders."
+
+"Then wake him," said Eldon Parr, "instantly.  And send for my
+secretary."
+
+With a glance which he perceived Alison comprehended, Hodder made his way
+out of the room.  He had from Eldon Parr, as he passed him, neither
+question, acknowledgment, nor recognition.  Whatever the banker might
+have felt, or whether his body had now become a mere machine mechanically
+carrying on a life-long habit of action, the impression was one of the
+tremendousness of the man's consistency.  A great effort was demanded to
+summon up the now almost unimaginable experience of his confidence; of
+the evening when, almost on that very spot, he had revealed to Hodder the
+one weakness of his life.  And yet the effort was not to be, presently,
+without startling results.  In the darkness of the street the picture
+suddenly grew distinct on the screen of the rector's mind, the face of
+the banker subtly drawn with pain as he had looked down on it in
+compassion; the voice with its undercurrent of agony:
+
+"He never knew how much I cared--that what I was doing was all for him,
+building for him, that he might carry on my work."
+
+
+
+V
+
+So swift was the trolley that ten minutes had elapsed, after Hodder's
+arrival, before the purr of an engine and the shriek of a brake broke the
+stillness of upper Dalton Street and announced the stopping of a heavy
+motor before the door.  The rector had found Mr. Bentley in the library,
+alone, seated with bent head in front of the fire, and had simply
+announced the intention of Eldon Parr to come.  From the chair Hodder had
+unobtrusively chosen, near the window, his eyes rested on the noble
+profile of his friend.  What his thoughts were, Hodder could not surmise;
+for he seemed again, marvellously, to have regained the outward peace
+which was the symbol of banishment from the inner man of all thought of
+self.
+
+"I have prepared her for Mr. Parr's coming," he said to Hodder at length.
+
+And yet he had left her there!  Hodder recalled the words Mr. Bentley had
+spoken, "It is her place."  Her place, the fallen woman's, the place she
+had earned by a great love and a great renunciation, of which no earthly
+power might henceforth deprive her .  .  .  .
+
+Then came the motor, the ring at the door, the entrance of Eldon Parr
+into the library.  He paused, a perceptible moment, on the threshold as
+his look fell upon the man whom he had deprived of home and fortune,--yes
+and of the one woman in the world for them both.  Mr. Bentley had risen,
+and stood facing him.  That shining, compassionate gaze should have been
+indeed a difficult one to meet.  Vengeance was the Lord's, in truth!
+What ordeal that Horace Bentley in anger and retribution might have
+devised could have equalled this!
+
+And yet Eldon Parr did meet it--with an effort.  Hodder, from his corner,
+detected the effort, though it were barely discernible, and would have
+passed a scrutiny less rigid,--the first outward and visible sign of the
+lesion within.  For a brief instant the banker's eyes encountered Mr.
+Bentley's look with a flash of the old defiance, and fell, and then swept
+the room.
+
+"Will you come this way, Mr. Parr?" Mr. Bentley said, indicating the door
+of the bedroom.
+
+Alison followed.  Her eyes, wet with unheeded tears, had never left Mr.
+Bentley's face.  She put out her hand to him .  .  .  .
+
+Eldon Parr had halted abruptly.  He knew from Alison the circumstances in
+which his son had died, and how he had been brought hither to this house,
+but the sight of the woman beside the bed fanned into flame his fury
+against a world which had cheated him, by such ignominious means, of his
+dearest wish.  He grew white with sudden passion.
+
+"What is she doing here?"  he demanded.
+
+Kate Marcy, who had not seemed to hear his entrance, raised up to him a
+face from which all fear had fled, a face which, by its suggestive power,
+compelled him to realize the absolute despair clutching now at his own
+soul, and against which he was fighting wildly, hopelessly.  It was lying
+in wait for him, W th hideous patience, in the coming watches of the
+night.  Perhaps he read in the face of this woman whom he had condemned
+to suffer all degradation, and over whom he was now powerless, something
+which would ultimately save her from the hell now yawning for him; a
+redeeming element in her grief of which she herself were not as yet
+conscious, a light shining in the darkness of her soul which in eternity
+would become luminous.  And he saw no light for him--He thrashed in
+darkness.  He had nothing, now, to give, no power longer to deprive.
+She had given all she possessed, the memorial of her kind which would
+outlast monuments.
+
+It was Alison who crossed the room swiftly.  She laid her hand
+protectingly on Kate Marcy's shoulder, and stooped, and kissed her.
+She turned to her father.
+
+"It is her right," she said.  "He belonged to her, not to us.  And we
+must take her home with us.
+
+"No," answered Kate Marcy' "I don't want to go.  I wouldn't live," she
+added with unexpected intensity, "with him."
+
+"You would live with me," said Alison.
+
+"I don't want to live!"  Kate Marcy got up from the chair with an energy
+they had not thought her to possess, a revival of the spirit which had
+upheld her when she had contended, singly, with a remorseless world.  She
+addressed herself to Eldon Parr.  "You took him from me, and I was a fool
+to let you.  He might have saved me and saved himself.  I listened to you
+when you told me lies as to how it would ruin him .  .  . . Well,--I had
+him you never did."
+
+The sudden, intolerable sense of wrong done to her love, the swift anger
+which followed it, the justness of her claim of him who now lay in the
+dignity of death clothed her--who in life had been crushed and blotted
+out--with a dignity not to be gainsaid.  In this moment of final self-
+assertion she became the dominating person in the room, knew for once the
+birthright of human worth.  They watched her in silence as she turned and
+gave one last, lingering look at the features of the dead; stretched out
+her hand towards them, but did not touch them .  .  .  and then went
+slowly towards the door.  Beside Alison she stopped.
+
+"You are his sister?"  she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+She searched Alison's face, wistfully.
+
+"I could have loved you."
+
+"And can you not--still?"
+
+Kate Mercy did not answer the question.
+
+"It is because you understand," she said.  "You're like those I've come
+to know--here.  And you're like him .  .  .  .  I don't mean in looks.
+He, too, was good--and square."  She spoke the words a little defiantly,
+as though challenging the verdict of the world.  "And he wouldn't have
+been wild if he could have got going straight."
+
+"I know," said Alison, in a low voice.
+
+"Yes," said Kate Mercy, "you look as if you did.  He thought a lot of
+you, he said he was only beginning to find out what you was.  I'd like
+you to think as well of me as you can."
+
+"I could not think better," Alison replied.
+
+Kate Mercy shook her head.
+
+"I got about as low as any woman ever got," she said
+
+"Mr. Hodder will tell you.  I want you to know that I wouldn't marry--
+your brother," she hesitated over the name.  "He wanted me to--he was mad
+with me to night, because I wouldn't--when this happened."
+
+She snatched her hand free from Alison's, and fled out of the room, into
+the hallway.
+
+Eldon Parr had moved towards the bed, seemingly unaware of the words they
+had spoken.  Perhaps, as he gazed upon the face, he remembered in his
+agony the sunny, smiling child who need to come hurrying down the steps
+in Ransome Street to meet him.
+
+In the library Mr. Bentley and John Hodder, knowing nothing of her
+flight, heard the front door close on Kate Marcy forever .  .  .  .
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+LIGHT
+
+
+I
+
+Two days after the funeral, which had taken place from Calvary, and not
+from St. John's, Hodder was no little astonished to receive a note from
+Eldon Parr's secretary requesting the rector to call in Park Street.  In
+the same mail was a letter from Alison.  "I have had," she wrote, "a talk
+with my father.  The initiative was his.  I should not have thought of
+speaking to him of my affairs so soon after Preston's death.  It seems
+that he strongly suspected our engagement, which of course I at once
+acknowledged, telling him that it was your intention, at the proper time,
+to speak to him yourself.
+
+"I was surprised when he said he would ask you to call.  I confess that
+I have not an idea of what he intends to say to you, John, but I trust
+you absolutely, as always.  You will find him, already, terribly changed.
+I cannot describe it--you will see for yourself.  And it has all seemed
+to happen so suddenly.  As I wrote you, he sat up both nights, with
+Preston--he could not be induced to leave the room.  And after the first
+night he was different.  He has hardly spoken a word, except when he sent
+for me this evening, and he eats nothing .  .  .  .  And yet, somehow,
+I do not think that this will be the end.  I feel that he will go on
+living.  .  .  .  .
+
+"I did not realize how much he still hoped about Preston.  And on Monday,
+when Preston so unexpectedly came home, he was happier than I have known
+him for years.  It was strange and sad that he could not see, as I saw,
+that whatever will power my brother had had was gone.  He could not read
+it in the face of his own son, who was so quick to detect it in all
+others!  And then came the tragedy.  Oh, John, do you think we shall ever
+find that girl again?--I know you are trying but we mustn't rest until we
+do.  Do you think we ever shall?  I shall never forgive myself for not
+following her out of the door, but, I thought she had gone to you and Mr.
+Bentley."
+
+Hodder laid the letter down, and took it up again.  He knew that Alison
+felt, as he felt, that they never would find Kate Marcy .  .  .  .  He
+read on.
+
+"My father wished to speak to me about the money.  He has plans for
+much of it, it appears, even now.  Oh.  John, he will never understand.
+I want so much to see you, to talk to you--there are times when I am
+actually afraid to be alone, and without you.  If it be weakness to
+confess that I need your reassurance, your strength and comfort
+constantly, then I am weak.  I once thought I could stand alone, that
+I had solved all problems for myself, but I know now how foolish I was.
+I have been face to face with such dreadful, unimagined things, and in my
+ignorance I did not conceive that life held such terrors.  And when I
+look at my father, the thought of immortality turns me faint.  After you
+have come here this afternoon there can be no longer any reason why we
+should not meet, and all the world know it.  I will go with you to Mr.
+Bentley's.
+
+"Of course I need not tell you that I refused to inherit anything.  But
+I believe I should have consented if I possibly could have done so.  It
+seemed so cruel--I can think of no other word--to have, to refuse at such
+a moment.  Perhaps I have been cruel to him all my life--I don't know.
+As I look back upon everything, all our relations, I cannot see how I
+could have been different.  He wouldn't let me.  I still believe to have
+stayed with him would have been a foolish and useless sacrifice .  .  .
+But he looked at me so queerly, as though he, too, had had a glimmering
+of what we might have been to each other after my mother died.  Why is
+life so hard?  And why are we always getting glimpses of things when it
+is too late?  It is only honest to say that if I had it to do all over
+again, I should have left him as I did.
+
+"It is hard to write you this, but he actually made the condition of my
+acceptance of the inheritance that I should not marry you.  I really do
+not believe I convinced him that you wouldn't have me take the money
+under any circumstances.  And the dreadful side of it all was that I had
+to make it plain to him--after what has happened that my desire to marry
+you wasn't the main reason of my refusal.  I had to tell him that even
+though you had not been in question, I couldn't have taken what he wished
+to give me, since it had not been honestly made.  He asked me why I went
+on eating the food bought with such money, living under his roof?  But I
+cannot, I will not leave him just yet .  .  .  .  It is two o'clock.  I
+cannot write any more to-night."
+
+
+
+II
+
+The appointed time was at the November dusk, hurried forward nearly an
+hour by the falling panoply of smoke driven westward over the Park by the
+wet east wind.  And the rector was conducted, with due ceremony, to the
+office upstairs which he had never again expected to enter, where that
+other memorable interview had taken place.  The curtains were drawn.  And
+if the green-shaded lamp--the only light in the room--had been arranged
+by a master of dramatic effect, it could not have better served the
+setting.
+
+In spite of Alison's letter, Holder was unprepared for the ravages a few
+days had made in the face of Eldon Parr.  Not that he appeared older: the
+impression was less natural, more sinister.  The skin had drawn sharply
+over the cheek-bones, and strangely the eyes both contradicted and
+harmonized with the transformation of the features.  These, too, had
+changed.  They were not dead and lustreless, but gleamed out of the
+shadowy caverns into which they had sunk, unyielding, indomitable in
+torment,--eyes of a spirit rebellious in the fumes .  .  .  .
+
+This spirit somehow produced the sensation of its being separated from
+the body, for the movement of the hand, inviting Holder to seat himself,
+seemed almost automatic.
+
+"I understand," said Eldon Parr, "that you wish to marry my daughter."
+
+"It is true that I am to marry Alison," Holder answered, "and that I
+intended, later on, to come to inform yon of the fact."
+
+He did not mention the death of Preston.  Condolences, under the
+circumstances, were utterly out of the question.
+
+"How do you propose to support her?"  the banker demanded.
+
+"She is of age, and independent of you.  You will pardon me if I reply
+that this is a matter between ourselves," Holder said.
+
+"I had made up my mind that the day she married you I would not only
+disinherit her, but refuse absolutely, to have anything to do with her."
+
+"If you cannot perceive what she perceives, that you have already by your
+own life cut her off from you absolutely and that seeing her will not
+mend matters while you remain relentless, nothing I can say will convince
+you."  Holder did not speak rebukingly.  The utter uselessness of it was
+never more apparent.  The man was condemned beyond all present reprieve,
+at least.
+
+"She left me," exclaimed Eldon Parr, bitterly.
+
+"She left you, to save herself."
+
+"We need not discuss that."
+
+"I am far from wishing to discuss it," Holder replied.
+
+"I do not know why you have asked me to come here, Mr. Parr.  It is clear
+that your attitude has not changed since our last conversation.  I tried
+to make it plain to you why the church could not accept your money.  Your
+own daughter, cannot accept it."
+
+"There was a time," retorted the banker, "when you did not refuse to
+accept it."
+
+"Yes," Holder replied, "that is true."  It came to him vividly then that
+it had been Alison herself who had cast the enlightening gleam which
+revealed his inconsistency.  But he did not defend himself.
+
+"I can see nothing in all this, Mr. Hodder, but a species of insanity,"
+said Eldon Parr, and there crept into his tone both querulousness and
+intense exasperation.  "In the first place, you insist upon marrying my
+daughter when neither she nor you have any dependable means of support.
+She never spared her criticisms of me, and you presume to condemn me,
+a man who, if he has neglected his children, has done so because he has
+spent too much of his time in serving his community and his country, and
+who has--if I have to say it myself--built up the prosperity which you
+and others are doing your best to tear down, and which can only result in
+the spread of misery.  You profess to have a sympathy with the masses,
+but you do not know them as I do.  They cannot control themselves, they
+require a strong hand.  But I am not asking for your sympathy.  I have
+been misunderstood all my life, I have become used to ingratitude, even
+from my children, and from the rector of the church for which I have done
+more than any other man."
+
+Hodder stared at him in amazement.
+
+"You really believe that!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Believe it!" Eldon Parr repeated.  "I have had my troubles, as heavy
+bereavements as a man can have.  All of them, even this of my son's
+death, all the ingratitude and lack of sympathy I have experienced--"
+(he looked deliberately at Hodder) "have not prevented me, do not prevent
+me to-day from regarding my fortune as a trust.  You have deprived St.
+John's, at least so long as you remain there, of some of its benefits,
+and the responsibility for that is on your own head.  And I am now making
+arrangements to give to Calvary the settlement house which St. John's
+should have had."
+
+The words were spoken with such an air of conviction, of unconscious
+plausibility, as it were, that it was impossible for Hodder to doubt the
+genuineness of the attitude they expressed.  And yet it was more than his
+mind could grasp .  .  .  .  Horace Bentley, Richard Garvin, and the
+miserable woman of the streets whom he had driven to destroy herself had
+made absolutely no impression whatever!  The gifts, the benefactions of
+Eldon Parr to his fellow-men would go on as before!
+
+"You ask me why I sent for you," the banker went on.  "It was primarily
+because I hoped to impress upon you the folly of marrying my daughter.
+And in spite of all the injury and injustice you have done me, I do not
+forget that you were once in a relationship to me which has been unique
+in my life.  I trusted you, I admired you, for your ability, for your
+faculty of getting on with men.  At that time you were wise enough not
+to attempt to pass comment upon accidents in business affairs which are,
+if deplorable, inevitable."
+
+Eldon Parr's voice gave a momentary sign of breaking.
+
+"I will be frank with you.  My son's death has led me, perhaps weakly,
+to make one more appeal.  You have ruined your career by these
+chimerical, socialistic notions you have taken up, and which you mistake
+for Christianity.  As a practical man I can tell you, positively, that
+St. John's will run downhill until you are bankrupt.  The people who come
+to you now are in search of a new sensation, and when that grows stale
+they will fall away.  Even if a respectable number remain in your
+congregation, after this excitement and publicity have died down, I have
+reason to know that it is impossible to support a large city church on
+contributions.  It has been tried again and again, and failed.  You have
+borrowed money for the Church's present needs.  When that is gone I
+predict that you will find it difficult to get more."
+
+This had every indication of being a threat, but Hodder, out of sheer
+curiosity, did not interrupt.  And it was evident that the banker drew a
+wrong conclusion from his silence, which he may actually have taken for
+reluctant acquiescence.  His tone grew more assertive.
+
+"The Church, Mr. Hodder, cannot do without the substantial business men.
+I have told the bishop so, but he is failing so rapidly from old age that
+I might as well not have wasted my breath.  He needs an assistant, a
+suffragan or coadjutor, and I intend to make it my affair to see that he
+gets one.  When I remember him as he was ten years ago, I find it hard to
+believe that he is touched with these fancies.  To be charitable, it is
+senile decay.  He seems to forget what I have done for him, personally,
+made up his salary, paid his expenses at different times, and no appeal
+for the diocese to me was ever in vain.  But again, I will let that go.
+
+"What I am getting at is this.  You have made a mess of the affairs of
+St. John's, you have made a mess of your life.  I am willing to give you
+the credit for sincerity.  Some of my friends might not be.  You want to
+marry my daughter, and she is apparently determined to marry you.  If you
+are sensible and resign from St. John's now I will settle on Alison a
+sufficient sum to allow you both to live in comfort and decency the rest
+of your lives.  I will not have it said of me that I permitted my
+daughter to become destitute."
+
+After he had finished, the rector sat for so long a time that the banker
+nervously shifted in his chair.  The clergyman's look had a cumulative
+quality, an intensity which seemed to increase as the silence continued.
+There was no anger in it, no fanaticism.  On the contrary, the higher
+sanity of it was disturbing; and its extraordinary implication--gradually
+borne in upon Eldon Parr--was that he himself were not in his right mind.
+The words, when they came, were a confirmation of this inference.
+
+"It is what I feared, Mr. Parr," he said.  "You are as yet incapable of
+comprehending."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the banker, jerking his hand from the table.
+
+The rector shook his head.
+
+"If this great chastisement with which you have been visited has given
+you no hint of the true meaning of life, nothing I can say will avail.
+If you will not yet listen to the Spirit which is trying to make you
+comprehend, how then will you listen to me?  How am I to open your eyes
+to the paradox of truth, that he who would save his life shall lose it,
+that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for
+a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God?  If you will not believe him
+who said that, you will not believe me.  I can only beg of you, strive to
+understand, that your heart many be softened, that your suffering soul
+may be released."
+
+It is to be recorded, strangely, that Eldon Parr did not grow angry in
+his turn.  The burning eyes looked out at Hodder curiously, as at a being
+upon whom the vials of wrath were somehow wasted, against whom the
+weapons of power were of no account.  The fanatic had become a phenomenon
+which had momentarily stilled passion to arouse interest.  .  .  "Art
+thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?"
+
+"Do you mean to say"--such was the question that sprang to Eldon Parr's
+lips--"that you take the Bible literally?  What is your point of view?
+You speak about the salvation of souls, I have heard that kind of talk
+all my life.  And it is easy, I find, for men who have never known the
+responsibilities of wealth to criticize and advise.  I regard
+indiscriminate giving as nothing less than a crime, and I have always
+tried to be painstaking and judicious.  If I had taken the words you
+quoted at their face value, I should have no wealth to distribute to-day.
+
+"I, too, Mr. Hodder, odd as it may seem to you, have had my dreams--of
+doing my share of making this country the best place in the world to live
+in.  It has pleased providence to take away my son.  He was not fitted to
+carry on my work,--that is the way--with dreams.  I was to have taught
+him to build up, and to give, as I have given.  You think me embittered,
+hard, because I seek to do good, to interpret the Gospel in my own way.
+Before this year is out I shall have retired from all active business,
+
+"I intend to spend the rest of my life in giving away the money I have
+earned--all of it.  I do not intend to spare myself, and giving will be
+harder than earning.  I shall found institutions for research of disease,
+hospitals, playgrounds, libraries, and schools.  And I shall make the
+university here one of the best in the country.  What more, may I ask,
+would you have me do?"
+
+"Ah," replied the rector, "it is not what I would have you do.  It is
+not, indeed, a question of 'doing,' but of seeing."
+
+"Of seeing?"  the banker repeated.  "As I say, of using judgment."
+
+"Judgment, yes, but the judgment which has not yet dawned for you, the
+enlightenment which is the knowledge of God's will.  Worldly wisdom is a
+rule of thumb many men may acquire, the other wisdom, the wisdom of the
+soul, is personal--the reward of revelation which springs from desire.
+You ask me what I think you should do.  I will tell you--but you will not
+do it, you will be powerless to do it unless you see it for yourself,
+unless the time shall come when you are willing to give up everything
+you have held dear in life,--not your money, but your opinions, the very
+judgment and wisdom you value, until you have gained the faith which
+proclaims these worthless, until you are ready to receive the Kingdom of
+God as a little child.  You are not ready, now.  Your attitude, your very
+words, proclaim your blindness to all that has happened you, your
+determination to carry out, so far as it is left to you, your own will.
+You may die without seeing."
+
+Crazy as it all sounded, a slight tremor shook Eldon Parr.  There was
+something in the eyes, in the powerful features of the clergyman that
+kept him still, that made him listen with a fascination which had he
+taken cognizance of it--was akin to fear.  That this man believed it,
+that he would impress it upon others, nay, had already done so, the
+banker did not then doubt.
+
+"You speak of giving," Hodder continued, "and you have nothing to give--
+nothing.  You are poorer to-day than the humblest man who has seen God.
+But you have much, you have all to restore."  Without raising his voice,
+the rector had contrived to put a mighty emphasis on the word.  "You
+speak of the labour of giving, but if you seek your God and haply find
+him you will not rest night or day while you live until you have restored
+every dollar possible of that which you have wrongfully taken from
+others."
+
+John Hodder rose and raised his arm in effective protest against the
+interruption Eldon Parr was about to make.  He bore him down.
+
+"I know what you are going to say, Mr. Parr,--that it is not practical.
+That word 'practical' is the barrier between you and your God.  I tell
+you that God can make anything practical.  Your conscience, the spirit,
+tortures you to-day, but you have not had enough torture, you still think
+to escape easily, to keep the sympathy of a world which despises you.
+You are afraid to do what God would have you do.  You have the
+opportunity, through grace, by your example to leave the world better
+than you found it, to do a thing of such magnitude as is given to few
+men, to confess before all that your life has been blind and wicked.
+That is what the Spirit is trying to teach you.  But you fear the
+ridicule of the other blind men, you have not the faith to believe that
+many eyes would be opened by your act.  The very shame of such a
+confession, you think, is not to be borne."
+
+"Suppose I acknowledge, which I do not, your preposterous charge, how
+would you propose to do this thing?"
+
+"It is very simple," said the rector, "so far as the actual method of
+procedure goes.  You have only to establish a board of men in whom you
+have confidence,--a court of claims, so to speak,--to pass upon the
+validity of every application, not from a business standpoint alone, but
+from one of a broad justice and equity.  And not only that.  I should
+have it an important part of the duties of this board to discover for
+themselves other claimants who may not, for various reasons, come
+forward.  In the case of the Consolidated Tractions, for instances there
+are doubtless many men like Garvin who invested their savings largely on
+the strength of your name.  You cannot bring him back to life, restore
+him to his family as he was before you embittered him, but it would be a
+comparatively easy matter to return to his widow, with compound interest,
+the sum which he invested."
+
+"For the sake of argument," said Eldon Parr, "what would you do with the
+innumerable impostors who would overwhelm such a board with claims that
+they had bought and sold stock at a loss?  And that is only one case I
+could mention."
+
+"Would it be so dreadful a thing," asked Hodder, "To run the risk of
+making a few mistakes?  It would not be business, you say.  If you had
+the desire to do this, you would dismiss such an obsession from your
+brain, you would prefer to err on the aide of justice and mercy.  And no
+matter how able your board, in making restitution you could at best
+expect to mend only a fraction of the wrongs you have done."
+
+"I shall waive, for the moment, my contention that the Consolidated
+Tractions Company, had it succeeded, would greatly have benefited the
+city.  Even if it had been the iniquitous, piratical transaction you
+suggest, why should I assume the responsibility for all who were
+concerned in it?"
+
+"If the grace were given you to do this, that question would answer
+itself," the rector replied.  "The awful sense of responsibility, which
+you now lack, would overwhelm you."
+
+"You have made me out a rascal and a charlatan," said Eldon Parr, "and I
+have listened' patiently in my desire to be fair, to learn from your own
+lips whether there were anything in the extraordinary philosophy you have
+taken up, and which you are pleased to call Christianity.  If you will
+permit me to be as frank as you have been, it appears to me as sheer
+nonsense and folly, and if it were put into practice the world would be
+reduced at once to chaos and anarchy."
+
+"There is no danger, I am sorry to say, of its being put into practice at
+once," said Hodder, smiting sadly.
+
+"I hope not," answered the banker, dryly.  "Utopia is a dream in which
+those who do the rough work of the world cannot afford to indulge.  And
+there is one more question.  You will, no doubt, deride it as practical,
+but to my mind it is very much to the point.  You condemn the business
+practices in which I have engaged all my life as utterly unchristian.  If
+you are logical, you will admit that no man or woman who owns stock in a
+modern corporation is, according to your definition, Christian, and, to
+use your own phrase, can enter the Kingdom of God.  I can tell you, as
+one who knows, that there is no corporation in this country which, in the
+struggle to maintain itself, is not forced to adopt the natural law of
+the survival of the fittest, which you condemn.  Your own salary, while
+you had it, came from men who had made the money in corporations.
+Business is business, and admits of no sentimental considerations.  If
+you can get around that fact, I will gladly bow to your genius.  Should
+you succeed in reestablishing St. John's on what you call a free basis--
+and in my opinion you will not--even then the money, you would live on,
+and which supported the church, would be directly or indirectly derived
+from corporations."
+
+"I do not propose to enter into an economics argument with you, Mr. Parr,
+but if you tell me that the flagrant practices indulged in by those who
+organized the Consolidated Tractions Company can be excused under any
+code of morals, any conception of Christianity, I tell you they cannot.
+What do we see today in your business world?  Boards of directors,
+trusted by stockholders, betraying their trust, withholding information
+in order to profit thereby, buying and selling stock secretly; stock
+watering, selling to the public diluted values,--all kinds of iniquity
+and abuse of power which I need not go into.  Do you mean to tell me, on
+the plea that business is business and hence a department by itself, that
+deception, cheating, and stealing are justified and necessary?  The
+awakened conscience of the public is condemning you.
+
+"The time is at hand, though neither you nor I may live to see it, when
+the public conscience itself is beginning to perceive thin higher justice
+hidden from you.  And you are attempting to mislead when you do not
+distinguish between the men who, for their own gain and power, mismanage
+such corporations as are mismanaged, and those who own stock and are
+misled.
+
+"The public conscience of which I speak is the leaven of Christianity at
+work.  And we must be content to work with it, to await its fulfilment,
+to realize that no one of us can change the world, but can only do his
+part in making it better.  The least we can do is to refuse to indulge
+in practices which jeopardize our own souls, to remain poor if we cannot
+make wealth honestly.  Say what you will, the Christian government we are
+approaching will not recognize property, because it is gradually becoming
+clear that the holding of property delays the Kingdom at which you scoff,
+giving the man who owns it a power over the body of the man who does not.
+Property produces slavery, since it compels those who have none to work
+for those who have.
+
+"The possession of property, or of sufficient property to give one
+individual an advantage over his fellows is inconsistent with
+Christianity.  Hence it will be done away with, but only when enough have
+been emancipated to carry this into effect.  Hence the saying of our Lord
+about the needle's eye--the danger to the soul of him who owns much
+property."
+
+"And how about your Christian view of the world as a vale of tears?"
+Eldon Parr inquired.
+
+"So long as humanity exists, there will always be tears," admitted the
+rector.  "But it is a false Christianity which does not bid us work for
+our fellow-men, to relieve their suffering and make the world brighter.
+It is becoming clear that the way to do this effectively is through
+communities, cooperation, through nations, and not individuals.  And
+this, if you like, is practical,--so practical that the men like you,
+who have gained unexampled privilege, fear it more and more.  The old
+Christian misconception, that the world is essentially a bad place, and
+which has served the ends of your privilege, is going by forever.  And
+the motto of the citizens of the future will be the Christian motto,
+"I am my brother's keeper."  The world is a good place because the Spirit
+is continually working in it, to make it better.  And life is good, if
+only we take the right view of it,--the revealed view."
+
+"What you say is all very fine," said Eldon Parr.  "And I have heard it
+before, from the discontented, the socialists.  But it does not take into
+account the one essential element, human nature."
+
+"On the other hand, your scheme of life fails to reckon with the greater
+factor, divine nature," Hodder replied.
+
+"When you have lived as long as I have, perhaps you will think
+differently, Mr. Hodder."  Eldon Parr's voice had abruptly grown
+metallic, as though the full realization had come over him of the
+severity of the clergyman's arraignment; the audacity of the man who had
+ventured to oppose him and momentarily defeated him, who had won the
+allegiance of his own daughter, who had dared condemn him as an evil-doer
+and give advice as to his future course.  He, Eldon Parr, who had been
+used to settle the destinies of men!  His anger was suddenly at white
+heat; and his voice, which he strove to control, betrayed it.
+
+"Since you have rejected my offer, which was made in kindness, since you
+are bent on ruining my daughter's life as well as your own, and she has
+disregarded my wishes, I refuse to see either of you, no matter to what
+straits you may come, as long as I live.  That is understood.  And she
+leaves this house to-day, never to enter it again.  It is useless to
+prolong this conversation, I think."
+
+"Quite useless, as I feared, Mr. Parr.  Do you know why Alison is willing
+to marry me?  It is because the strength has been given me to oppose you
+in the name of humanity, and this in spite of the fact that her love for
+you to-day is greater than it has ever been before.  It is a part of the
+heavy punishment you have inflicted on yourself that you cannot believe
+in her purity.  You insist on thinking that the time will come when she
+will return to you for help.  In senseless anger and pride you are
+driving her away from you whom you will some day need.  And in that day,
+should God grant you a relenting heart to make the sign, she will come to
+you,--but to give comfort, not to receive it.  And even as you have
+threatened me, I will warn you, yet not in anger.  Except a man be born
+again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God, nor understand the motives of
+those who would enter into it.  Seek and pray for repentance."
+
+Infuriated though he was, before the commanding yet compassionate bearing
+of the rector he remained speechless.  And after a moment's pause, Hodder
+turned and left the room .  .  .  .
+
+
+
+III
+
+When Hodder had reached the foot of the stairs, Alison came out to him.
+The mourning she wore made her seem even taller.  In the face upturned to
+his, framed in the black veil and paler than he had known it, were traces
+of tears; in the eyes a sad, yet questioning and trustful smile.  They
+gazed at each other an instant, before speaking, in the luminous ecstasy
+of perfect communion which shone for them, undimmed, in the surrounding
+gloom of tragedy.  And thus, they felt, it would always shine.  Of that
+tragedy of the world's sin and sorrow they would ever be conscious.
+Without darkness there could be no light.
+
+"I knew," she said, reading his tidings, "it would be of no use.  Tell me
+the worst."
+
+"If you marry me, Alison, your father refuses to see you again.  He
+insists that you leave the house."
+
+"Then why did he wish to see you?"
+
+"It was to make an appeal.  He thinks, of course, that I have made a
+failure of life, and that if I marry you I shall drag you down to poverty
+and disgrace."
+
+She raised her head, proudly.
+
+"But he knows that it is I who insist upon marrying you!  I explained it
+all to him--how I had asked you.  Of course he did not understand.  He
+thinks, I suppose, that it is simply an infatuation."
+
+In spite of the solemnity of the moment, Hodder smiled down at her,
+touched by the confession.
+
+"That, my dear, doesn't relieve me of responsibility.  I am just as
+responsible as though I had spoken first, instead of you."
+
+"But, John, you didn't_-?"  A sudden fear made her silent.
+
+He took her hand and pressed it reassuringly.
+
+"Give you up?  No, Alison," he answered simply.  "When you came to me,
+God put you in my keeping."
+
+She clung to him suddenly, in a passion of relief.
+
+"Oh, I never could give you up, I never would unless you yourself told me
+to.  Then I would do it,--for you.  But you won't ask me, now?"
+
+He put his arm around her shoulders, and the strength of it seemed to
+calm her.
+
+"No, dear.  I would make the sacrifice, ask you to make it, if it would
+be of any good.  As you say, he does not understand.  And you couldn't go
+on living with him and loving me.  That solution is impossible.  We can
+only hope that the time will come when he will realize his need of you,
+and send for you."
+
+"And did he not ask you anything more?"
+
+Hodder hesitated.  He had intended to spare her that .  .  .  .  Her
+divination startled him.
+
+"I know, I know without your telling me.  He offered you money, he
+consented to our--marriage if you would give up St. John's.  Oh, how
+could her, she cried.  "How could he so misjudge and insult you!"
+
+"It is not me he misjudges, Alison, it is mankind, it is God.  That is
+his terrible misfortune."  Hodder released her tenderly.  "You must see
+him--you must tell him that when he needs you, you will come."
+
+"I will see him now, she said.  You will wait for, me?"
+
+"Now?"  he repeated, taken aback by her resolution, though it was
+characteristic.
+
+"Yes, I will go as I am.  I can send for my things.  My father has given
+me no choice, no reprieve,--not that I ask one.  I have you, dear.  I
+will stay with Mr. Bentley to-night, and leave for New York to-morrow,
+to do what I have to do--and then you will he ready for me."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I shall be ready."
+
+He lingered in the well-remembered hall .  .  .  .  And when at last she
+came down again her eyes shone bravely through her tears, her look
+answered the question of his own.  There was no need for speech.  With
+not so much as a look behind she left, with him, her father's house.
+
+
+
+Outside, the mist had become a drizzle, and as they went down the walk
+together beside the driveway she slipped her arm into his, pressing close
+to his side.  Her intuition was perfect, the courage of her love sublime.
+
+"I have you, dear," she whispered, "never in my life before have I been
+rich."
+
+"Alison!"
+
+It was all he could say, but the intensity of his mingled feeling went
+into the syllables of her name.  An impulse made them pause and turn,
+and they stood looking back together at the great house which loomed the
+greater in the thickening darkness, its windows edged with glow.  Never,
+as in this moment when the cold rain wet their faces, had the thought of
+its comfort and warmth and luxury struck him so vividly; yes, and of its
+terror and loneliness now, of the tortured spirit in it that found no
+rest.
+
+"Oh, John," she cried, "if we only could!"
+
+He understood her.  Such was the perfect quality of their sympathy that
+she had voiced his thought.  What were rain and cold, the inclemency of
+the elements to them?  What the beauty and the warmth of those great,
+empty rooms to Eldon Parr?  Out of the heaven of their happiness they
+looked down, helpless, into the horrors of the luxury of hell.
+
+"It must be," he answered her, "in God's good time."
+
+"Life is terrible!" she said.  "Think of what he must have done to
+suffer so, to be condemned to this!  And when I went to him, just now,
+he wouldn't even kiss me good-by.  Oh, my dear, if I hadn't had you to
+take me, what should I have done? . . . It never was a home to me--to any
+of us.  And as I look back now, all the troubles began when we moved into
+it.  I can only think of it as a huge prison, all the more sinister for
+its costliness."
+
+A prison!  It had once been his own conceit.  He drew her gently away,
+and they walked together along Park Street towards the distant arc-light
+at the corner which flung a gleaming band along the wet pavement.
+
+"Perhaps it was because I was too young to know what trouble was when
+we lived in Ransome Street," she continued.  "But I can remember now
+how sad my mother was at times--it almost seemed as though she had a
+premonition."  Alison's voice caught .  .  .  .
+
+The car which came roaring through the darkness, and which stopped
+protestingly at their corner, was ablaze with electricity, almost filled
+with passengers.  A young man with a bundle changed his place in order
+that they might sit together in one of the little benches bordering the
+aisle; opposite them was a laughing, clay-soiled group of labourers going
+home from work; in front, a young couple with a chubby child.  He stood
+between his parents, facing about, gazing in unembarrassed wonder at the
+dark lady with the veil.  Alison's smile seemed only to increase the
+solemnity of his adoration, and presently he attempted to climb over the
+barrier between them.  Hodder caught him, and the mother turned in alarm,
+recapturing him.
+
+"You mustn't bother the lady, Jimmy," she said, when she had thanked the
+rector.  She had dimpled cheeks and sparkling blue eyes, but their
+expression changed as they fell on Alison's face, expressing something
+of the wonder of the child's.
+
+"Oh, he isn't bothering me," Alison protested.  "Do let him stand."
+
+"He don't make up to everybody," explained the mother, and the manner of
+her speech was such a frank tribute that Alison flushed.  There had been,
+too, in the look the quick sympathy for bereavement of the poor.
+
+"Aren't they nice?" Alison leaned over and whispered to Hodder, when the
+woman had turned back.  "One thing, at least, I shall never regret,--that
+I shall have to ride the rest of my life in the streetcars.  I love them.
+That is probably my only qualification, dear, for a clergyman's wife."
+
+Hodder laughed.  "It strikes me," he said, "as the supreme one."
+
+They came at length to Mr. Bentley's door, flung open in its usual wide
+hospitality by Sam.  Whatever theist fortunes, they would always be
+welcome here .  .  .  .  But it turned out, in answer to their question,
+that their friend was not at home.
+
+"No, sah," said Sam, bowing and smiling benignantly, "but he done tole
+me to say, when you and Miss Alison come, hit was to make no diffunce,
+dat you bofe was to have supper heah.  And I'se done cooked it--yassah.
+Will you kindly step into the liba'y, suh, and Miss Alison?  Dar was a
+lady 'crost de city, Marse Ho'ace said--yassah."
+
+"John," said Alison with a questioning smile, when they were alone before
+the fire, "I believe he went out on purpose,--don't you?--just that we
+might be here alone."
+
+"He knew we were coming?"
+
+"I wrote him."
+
+"I think he might be convicted on the evidence," Hodder agreed.  "But--?"
+His question remained unasked.
+
+Alison went up to him.  He had watched her, absorbed and fascinated, as
+with her round arms gracefully lifted in front of the old mirror she had
+taken off her hat and veil; smoothing, by a few deft touches, the dark
+crown of her hair.  The unwonted intimacy of the moment, invoking as it
+did an endless reflection of other similar moments in their future life
+together, was in its effect overwhelming, bringing with it at last a
+conviction not to be denied.  Her colour rose as she faced him, her
+lashes fell.
+
+"Did you seriously think, dear, that we could have deceived Mr. Bentley?
+Then you are not as clever as I thought you.  As soon as it happened I
+sent him a note? that very night.  For I felt that he ought to be told
+first of all."
+
+"And as usual," Hodder answered, "you were right."
+
+Supper was but a continuation of that delicious sense of intimacy.  And
+Sam, beaming in his starched shirt and swallow-tail, had an air of
+presiding over a banquet of state.  And for that matter, none had ever
+gone away hungry from this table, either for meat or love.  It was,
+indeed, a consecrated meal,--consecrated for being just there.  Such
+was the tact which the old darky had acquired from his master that he
+left the dishes on the shining mahogany board, and bowed himself out.
+
+"When you wants me, Miss Alison, des ring de bell."
+
+She was seated upright yet charmingly graceful, behind the old English
+coffee service which had been Mr. Bentley's mother's.  And it was she
+who, by her wonderful self-possession, by the reassuring smile she gave
+him as she handed him his cup, endowed it all with reality.
+
+"It's strange," she said, "but it seems as though I had been doing it all
+my life, instead of just beginning."
+
+"And you do it as though you had," he declared.
+
+"Which is a proof," she replied, "of the superior adaptability of women."
+
+He did not deny it.  He would not then, in truth, have disputed her
+wildest statement.  .  .  But presently, after they had gone back into
+the library and were seated side by side before the coals, they spoke
+again of serious things, marvelling once more at a happiness which could
+be tinged and yet unmarred by vicarious sorrow.  Theirs was the soberer,
+profounder happiness of gratitude and wonder, too wise to exult, but
+which of itself is exalted; the happiness which praises, and passes
+understanding.
+
+"There are many things I want to say to you, John," she told him, once,
+"and they trouble me a little.  It is only because I am so utterly
+devoted to you that I wish you to know me as I am.  I have always had
+queer views, and although much has happened to change me since I have
+known and loved you, I am not quite sure how much those views have
+changed.  "Love," she added, "plays such havoc with one's opinions.
+
+She returned his smile, but with knitted brows.
+
+"It's really serious--you needn't laugh.  And it's only fair to you to
+let you know the kind of a wife you are getting, before it is too late.
+For instance, I believe in divorce, although I can't imagine it for us.
+One never can, I suppose, in this condition--that's the trouble.  I have
+seen so many immoral marriages that I can't think God intends people
+to live degraded.  And I'm sick and tired of the argument that an
+indissoluble marriage under all conditions is good for society.  That
+a man or woman, the units of society, should violate the divine in
+themselves for the sake of society is absurd.  They are merely setting an
+example to their children to do the same thing, which means that society
+in that respect will never get any better.  In this love that has come
+to us we have achieved an ideal which I have never thought to reach.
+Oh, John, I'm sure you won't misunderstand me when I say that I would
+rather die than have to lower it."
+
+"No," he answered, "I shall not misunderstand you."
+
+"Even though it is so difficult to put into words what I mean.  I don't
+feel that we really need the marriage service, since God has already
+joined us together.  And it is not through our own wills, somehow, but
+through his.  Divorce would not only be a crime against the spirit, it
+would be an impossibility while we feel as we do.  But if love should
+cease, then God himself would have divorced us, punished us by taking
+away a priceless gift of which we were not worthy.  He would have shut
+the gates of Eden in our faces because we had sinned against the Spirit.
+It would be quite as true to say 'whom God has put asunder no man may
+join together.' Am I hurting you?"
+
+Her hand was on the arm of his chair, and the act of laying his own on it
+was an assurance stronger than words.  Alison sighed.
+
+"Yes, I believed you would understand, even though I expressed myself
+badly,--that you would help me, that you have found a solution.  I used
+to regard the marriage service as a compromise, as a lowering of the
+ideal, as something mechanical and rational put in the place of the
+spiritual; that it was making the Church, and therefore God, conform to
+the human notion of what the welfare of society ought to be.  And it is
+absurd to promise to love.  We have no control over our affections.  They
+are in God's hands, to grant or withdraw.
+
+"And yet I am sure--this is new since I have known you--that if such a
+great love as ours be withdrawn it would be an unpardonable wrong for
+either of us to marry again.  That is what puzzles me--confounds the
+wisdom I used to have, and which in my littleness and pride I thought so
+sufficient.  I didn't believe in God, but now I feel him, through you,
+though I cannot define him.  And one of many reasons why I could not
+believe in Christ was because I took it for granted that he taught, among
+other things, a continuation of the marriage relation after love had
+ceased to justify it."
+
+Hodder did not immediately reply.  Nor did Alison interrupt his silence,
+but sat with the stillness which at times so marked her personality, her
+eyes trustfully fixed on him.  The current pulsing between them was
+unbroken.  Hodder's own look, as he gazed into the grate, was that of a
+seer.
+
+"Yes," he said at length, "it is by the spirit and not the letter of our
+Lord's teaching that we are guided.  The Spirit which we draw from the
+Gospels.  And everything written down there that does not harmonize with
+it is the mistaken interpretation of men.  Once the Spirit possesses us
+truly, we are no longer troubled and confused by texts.
+
+"The alpha and omega of Christ's message is rebirth into the knowledge of
+that Spirit, and hence submission to its guidance.  And that is what Paul
+meant when he said that it freed us from the law.  You are right, Alison,
+when you declare it to be a violation of the Spirit for a man and woman
+to live together when love does not exist.  Christ shows us that laws
+were made for those who are not reborn.  Laws are the rules of society,
+to be followed by those who have not found the inner guidance, who live
+and die in the flesh.  But the path which those who live under the
+control of the Spirit are to take is opened up to them as they journey.
+If all men and women were reborn we should have the paradox, which only
+the reborn can understand, of what is best for the individual being best
+for society, because under the will of the Spirit none can transgress
+upon the rights and happiness of others.  The Spirit would make the laws
+and rules superfluous.
+
+"And the great crime of the Church, for which she is paying so heavy an
+expiation, is that her faith wavered, and she forsook the Spirit and
+resumed the law her Master had condemned.  She no longer insisted on that
+which Christ proclaimed as imperative, rebirth.  She became, as you say,
+a mechanical organization, substituting, as the Jews had done, hard and
+fast rules for inspiration.  She abandoned the Communion of Saints, sold
+her birthright for a mess of pottage, for worldly, temporal power when
+she declared that inspiration had ceased with the Apostles, when she
+failed to see that inspiration is personal, and comes through rebirth.
+For the sake of increasing her membership, of dominating the affairs of
+men, she has permitted millions who lived in the law and the flesh, who
+persisted in forcing men to live by the conventions and customs Christ
+repudiated, and so stultify themselves, to act in Christ's name.  The
+unpardonable sin against the Spirit is to doubt its workings, to maintain
+that society will be ruined if it be substituted for the rules and
+regulations supposed to make for the material comforts of the nations,
+but which in reality suppress and enslave the weak.
+
+"Nevertheless in spite of the Church, marvellously through the Church the
+germ of our Lord's message has come down to us, and the age in which we
+live is beginning to realize its purport, to condemn the Church for her
+subservient rationalism.
+
+"Let us apply the rule of the Spirit to marriage.  If we examine the
+ideal we shall see clearly that the marriage-service is but a symbol.
+Like baptism, it is a worthless and meaningless rite unless the man and
+the woman have been born again into the Spirit, released from the law.
+If they are still, as St. Paul would say, in the flesh, let them have,
+if they wish, a civil permit to live together, for the Spirit can have
+nothing to do with such an union.  True to herself, the Church symbolizes
+the union of her members, the reborn.  She has nothing to do with laws
+and conventions which are supposedly for the good of society, nor is any
+union accomplished if those whom she supposedly joins are not reborn.
+If they are, the Church can neither make it or dissolve it, but merely
+confirm and acknowledge the work of the Spirit.  And every work of the
+Spirit is a sacrament.  Not baptism and communion and marriage only, but
+every act of life.
+
+"Oh, John," she exclaimed, her eyes lighting, "I can believe that!  How
+beautiful a thought!  I see now what is meant when it is said that man
+shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of
+the mouth of God.  That is the hourly guidance which is independent
+of the law.  And how terrible to think that all the spiritual beauty of
+such a religion should have been hardened into chapter and verse and
+regulation.  You have put into language what I think of Mr. Bentley,--
+that has acts are sacraments .  .  .  .  It is so simple when you explain
+it this way.  And yet I can see why it was said, too, that we must become
+as children to understand it."
+
+"The difficult thing," replied Holder, gravely, "is to retain it, to hold
+it after we have understood it--even after we have experienced it.  To
+continue to live in the Spirit demands all our effort, all our courage
+and patience and faith.  We cannot, as you say, promise to love for life.
+But the marriage service, interpreted, means that we will use all our
+human endeavour, with the help of the Spirit, to remain in what may be
+called the reborn state, since it is by the Spirit alone that true
+marriage is sanctified.  When the Spirit is withdrawn, man and woman
+are indeed divorced.
+
+"The words 'a sense of duty' belong to moral philosophy and not to
+religion.  Love annuls them.  I do not mean to decry them, but the reborn
+are lifted far above them by the subversion of the will by which our will
+is submitted to God's.  It is so we develop, and become, as it were, God.
+And hence those who are not married in the Spirit are not spiritually man
+and wife.  No consecration has taken place,  Church or no Church.  If
+rebirth occurs later, to either or both, the individual conscience--which
+is the Spirit, must decide whether, as regards each other, they are bound
+or free, and we must stand or fall by that.  Men object that this is
+opening the door to individualism.  What they fail to see is that the
+door is open, wide, to-day and can never  again be closed: that the law
+of the naturally born is losing its power, that the worn-out authority of
+the Church is being set at naught because that authority was devised by
+man to keep in check those who were not reborn.  The only check to
+material individualism is spiritual individualism, and the reborn man
+or woman cannot act to the detriment of his fellow-creatures."
+
+In her turn she was silent, still gazing at him, her breath coming
+deeply, for she was greatly moved.
+
+"Yes," she said simply, "I can see now why divorce between us would be a
+sacrilege.  I felt it, John, but I couldn't reason it out.  It is the
+consecration of the Spirit that justifies the union of the flesh.  For
+the Spirit, in that sense, does not deny the flesh."
+
+"That would be to deny life," Hodder replied.
+
+"I see.  Why was it all so hidden!"  The exclamation was not addressed to
+him--she was staring pensively into the fire.  But presently, with a
+swift movement, she turned to him.
+
+"You will preach this, John,--all of it!"
+
+It was not a question, but the cry of a new and wider vision of his task.
+Her face was transfigured.  And her voice, low and vibrating, expressed
+no doubts.  "Oh, I am proud of you!  And if they put you out and
+persecute you I shall always be proud, I shall never know why it was
+given me to have this, and to live.  Do you remember saying to me once
+that faith comes to us in some human form we love?  You are my faith.
+And faith in you is my faith in humanity, and faith in God."
+
+Ere he could speak of his own faith in her, in mankind, by grace of which
+he had been lifted from the abyss, there came a knock at the door.  And
+even as they answered it a deeper knowledge filtered into their hearts.
+
+Horace Bentley stood before them.  And the light from his face, that
+shone down upon them, was their benediction.
+
+
+
+
+AFTERWORD
+
+Although these pages have been published serially, it is with a feeling
+of reluctance that I send them out into the world, for better or worse,
+between the covers of a book.  They have been written with reverence, and
+the reading of the proofs has brought back to me vividly the long winters
+in which I pondered over the matter they contain, and wrote and rewrote
+the chapters.
+
+I had not thought to add anything to them by way of an afterword.
+Nothing could be farther from my mind than to pose as a theologian; and,
+were it not for one or two of the letters I have received, I should have
+supposed that no reader could have thought of making the accusation that
+I presumed to speak for any one except myself.  In a book of this kind,
+the setting forth of a personal view of religion is not only unavoidable,
+but necessary; since, if I wrote sincerely, Mr. Hodder's solution must
+coincide with my own--so far as I have been able to work one out.  Such
+as it is, it represents many years of experience and reflection.  And I
+can only crave the leniency of any trained theologian who may happen to
+peruse it.
+
+No one realizes, perhaps, the incompleteness of the religious
+interpretations here presented more keenly than I.  More significant,
+more vital elements of the truth are the rewards of a mind which searches
+and craves, especially in these days when the fruit of so many able minds
+lies on the shelves of library and bookshop.  Since the last chapter was
+written, many suggestions have come to me which I should like to have the
+time to develop for this volume.  But the nature of these elements is
+positive,--I can think of nothing I should care to subtract.
+
+Here, then, so far as what may be called religious doctrine is concerned,
+is merely a personal solution.  We are in an age when the truth is being
+worked out through many minds, a process which seems to me both Christian
+and Democratic.  Yet a gentleman has so far misunderstood this that he
+has already accused me, in a newspaper, of committing all the heresies
+condemned by the Council of Chalcedon,--and more!
+
+I have no doubt that he is right.  My consolation must be that I have as
+company--in some of my heresies, at least--a goodly array of gentlemen
+who wear the cloth of the orthodox churches whose doctrines he accuses me
+of denying.  The published writings of these clergymen are accessible to
+all.  The same critic declares that my interpretations are without
+"authority."  This depends, of course; on one's view of "authority."  But
+his accusation is true equally against many men who--if my observation be
+correct--are doing an incalculable service for religion by giving to the
+world their own personal solutions, interpreting Christianity in terms of
+modern thought.  No doubt these, too, are offending the champions of the
+Council of Chalcedon.
+
+And does the gentleman, may I ask, ever read the pages of the Hibbert
+Journal?
+
+Finally, I have to meet a more serious charge, that Mr. Hodder remains
+in the Church because of "the dread of parting with the old, strong
+anchorage, the fear of anathema and criticism, the thought of sorrowing
+and disapproving friends."  Or perhaps he infers that it is I who keep
+Mr. Hodder in the Church for these personal reasons.  Alas, the concern
+of society is now for those upon whom the Church has lost her hold, who
+are seeking for a solution they can accept.  And the danger to-day is not
+from the side of heresy.  The rector of St. John's, as a result of his
+struggle, gained what I believe to be a higher and surer faith than that
+which he formerly held, and in addition to this the realization of the
+presence of a condition which was paralyzing the Church's influence.
+
+One thing I had hoped to make clear, that if Mr. Hodder had left the
+Church under these circumstances he would have made the Great Refusal.
+The situation which he faced demanded something of the sublime courage
+of his Master.
+
+Lastly, may I be permitted to add that it is far from my intention to
+reflect upon any particular denomination.  The instance which I have
+taken is perhaps a pronounced rather than a particular case of the
+problem to which I have referred, and which is causing the gravest
+concern to thoughtful clergymen and laymen of all denominations.
+
+
+WINSTON CHURCHILL
+
+SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
+March 31,1913.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Absurd to promise to love
+Always getting glimpses of things when it is too late
+God himself would have divorced us
+Happiness of gratitude and wonder, too wise to exult
+Love, she added, plays such havoc with one's opinions
+We have no control over our affections
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INSIDE OF THE CUP, V8, BY CHURCHILL ***
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