re just two men in the
room,--Hodder and Eldon Parr. All the rest were ciphers; all had lost,
momentarily, their feelings of partisanship and were conscious only of
these two intense, radiating, opposing centres of force; and no man,
oddly enough, could say which was the stronger. They seemingly met on
equal terms. There could not be the slightest doubt that the rector did
not mean to yield, and yet they might have been puzzled if they had asked
themselves how they had read the fact in his face or manner. For he
betrayed neither anger nor impatience.

No more did the financier reveal his own feelings. He still sat back in
his chair, unmoved, in apparent contemplation. The posture was familiar
to Langmaid.

Would he destroy, too, this clergyman? For the first time in his life,
and as he looked at Hodder, the lawyer wondered. Hodder did not defend
himself, made no apologies. Christianity was not a collection of
doctrines, he reminded them,--but a mode of life. If anything were clear
to him, it was that the present situation was not, with the majority of
them, a matter of doctrines, but of unwillingness to accept the message
and precept of Jesus Christ, and lead Christian lives. They had made use
of the doctrines as a stalking-horse.

There was a stir at this, and Hodder paused a moment and glanced around
the table. But no one interrupted.

He was fully aware of his rights, and he had no intention of resigning.
To resign would be to abandon the work for which he was responsible, not
to them, but to God. And he was perfectly willing--nay, eager to defend
his Christianity before any ecclesiastical court, should the bishop
decide that a court was necessary. The day of freedom, of a truer vision
was at hand, the day of Christian unity on the vital truths, and no
better proof of it could be brought forward than the change in him.
In his ignorance and blindness he had hitherto permitted compromise, but
he would no longer allow those who made only an outward pretence of being
Christians to direct the spiritual affairs of St. John's, to say what
should and what should not be preached. This was to continue to paralyze
the usefulness of the church, to set at naught her mission, to alienate
those who most had need of her, who hungered and thirsted after
righteousness, and went away unsatisfied.

He had hardly resumed his seat when Everett Constable got up again. He
remarked, somewhat unsteadily, that to prolong the controversy w