s been. It was destiny that he should take his place on the
vestry; destiny, indeed, that he should ultimately become the vestry
as well as the first layman of the diocese; unobtrusively, as he had
accomplished everything else in life, in spite of Prestons and Warings,
Atterburys, Goodriches, and Gores. And he was wont to leave his weighty
business affairs to shift for themselves while he attended the diocesan
and general conventions of his Church.

He gave judiciously, as becomes one who holds a fortune in trust, yet
generously, always permitting others to help, until St. John's was a
very gem of finished beauty. And, as the Rothschilds and the Fuggera
made money for grateful kings and popes, so in a democratic age, Eldon
Parr became the benefactor of an adulatory public. The university, the
library, the hospitals, and the parks of his chosen city bear witness.

II

For forty years, Dr. Gilman had been the rector of St. John's. One
Sunday morning, he preached his not unfamiliar sermon on the text, "For
now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face," and when
the next Sunday dawned he was in his grave in Winterbourne Cemetery,
sincerely mourned within the parish and without. In the nature of mortal
things, his death was to be expected: no less real was the crisis to be
faced At the vestry meeting that followed, the problem was tersely set
forth by Eldon Parr, his frock coat tightly buttoned about his chest,
his glasses in his hand.

"Gentlemen," he said, "we have to fulfil a grave responsibility to the
parish, to the city, and to God. The matter of choosing a rector to-day,
when clergymen are meddling with all sorts of affairs which do not
concern them, is not so simple as it was twenty years ago. We have, at
St. John's, always been orthodox and dignified, and I take it to be the
sense of this vestry that we remain so. I conceive it our duty to find
a man who is neither too old nor too young, who will preach the faith
as we received it, who is not sensational, and who does not mistake
socialism for Christianity."

By force of habit, undoubtedly, Mr. Parr glanced at Nelson Langmaid as
he sat down. Innumerable had been the meetings of financial boards at
which Mr. Parr had glanced at Langmaid, who had never failed to
respond. He was that sine qua non of modern affairs, a corporation
lawyer,--although he resembled a big and genial professor of
Scandinavian extraction. He wore round, tortoise-shell spec