to look at you," she added, a little wistfully, "to be sure there
is something--something vital in Christianity, if we could only get at
it, something that does not depend upon what we have been led to believe
is indispensable. George, and men like him, can only show the weakness
in the old supports. I don't mean that they aren't doing the world a
service in revealing errors, but they cannot reconstruct."

"That is the clergyman's business," declared Mr. Bridges. "But he must
first acknowledge that the old supports are worthless."

"Well," said Phil, "I like your rector, in spite of his
anthropomorphism--perhaps, as George would say, because of it. There is
something manly about him that appeals to me."

"There," cried Eleanor, triumphantly, "I've always said Mr. Hodder had a
spiritual personality. You feel--you feel there is truth shut up inside
of him which he cannot communicate. I'll tell you who impresses me in
that way more strongly than any one else--Mr. Bentley. And he doesn't
come to church any more."

"Mr. Bentley," said her, mother, "is a saint. Your father tried to get
him to dinner to-day, but he had promised those working girls of his,
who live on the upper floors of his house, to dine with them. One of
them told me so. Of course he will never speak of his kindnesses."

"Mr. Bentley doesn't bother his head about theology," said Sally. "He
just lives."

"There's Eldon Parr," suggested George Bridges, mentioning the name of
the city's famous financier; "I'm told he relieved Mr. Bentley of his
property some twenty-five years ago. If Mr. Hodder should begin to
preach the modern heresy which you desire, Mr Parr might object. He's
very orthodox, I'm told."

"And Mr. Parr," remarked the modern Evelyn, sententiously, "pays the
bills, at St. John's. Doesn't he, father?"

"I fear he pays a large proportion of them," Mr. Waring admitted, in a
serious tone.

"In these days," said Evelyn, "the man who pays the bills is entitled to
have his religion as he likes it."

"No matter how he got the money to pay them," added Phil.

"That suggests another little hitch in the modern church which will have
to be straightened out," said George Bridges.

"'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean
the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of
extortion and excess.'"

"Why, George, you of all people quoting the Bible!" Eleanor exclaimed.

"And quoting it aptly, too,"