ve to Eldon Parr. I hate Eldon Parr," she
added, with startling inconsequence.

"If I had only known what it would lead to when I made Everett what he
is! But I knew nothing of business, and I wanted money, position to
satisfy my craving at the loss of--that other thing. And now I couldn't
change my husband if I would. He hasn't the courage, he hasn't the
vision. What there was of him, long ago, has been killed--and I killed
it. He isn't--anybody, now."

She relapsed again into weeping.

"And then it might not mean only poverty--it might mean disgrace."

"Disgrace!" the rector involuntarily took up the word.

"There are some things he has done," she said in a low voice, "which he
thought he was obliged to do which Eldon Parr made him do."

"But Mr. Parr, too--?" Hodder began.

"Oh, it was to shield Eldon Parr. They could never be traced to him.
And if they ever came out, it would kill my husband. Tell me," she
implored, "what can I do? What shall I do? You are responsible. You
have made me more bitterly unhappy than ever."

"Are you willing," he asked, after a moment, "to make the supreme
renunciation? to face poverty, and perhaps disgrace, to save your soul
and others?"

"And--others?"

"Yes. Your sacrifice would not, could not be in vain. Otherwise I
should be merely urging on you the individualism which you once advocated
with me."

"Renunciation." She pronounced the word questioningly. "Can
Christianity really mean that--renunciation of the world? Must we take
it in the drastic sense of the Church of the early centuries-the Church
of the Martyrs?"

"Christianity demands all of us, or nothing," he replied. "But the false
interpretation of renunciation of the early Church has cast its blight on
Christianity even to our day. Oriental asceticism, Stoicism, Philo and
other influences distorted Christ's meaning. Renunciation does not mean
asceticism, retirement from the world, a denial of life. And the early
Christian, since he was not a citizen, since he took the view that this
mortal existence was essentially bad and kept his eyes steadfastly fixed
on another, was the victim at once of false philosophies and of the
literal messianic prophecies of the Jews, which were taken over with
Christianity. The earthly kingdom which was to come was to be the result
of some kind of a cataclysm. Personally, I believe our Lord merely used
the Messianic literature as a convenient framework for his spiritual
Kingdom of