ay be privately confessed that there were some who sat in St.
John's during those first weeks of his incumbency who would indignantly
have repudiated the accusation that they were not good churchmen and
churchwomen, and who nevertheless had queer sensations in listening
to ancient doctrines set forth with Emersonian conviction. Some were
courageous enough to ask themselves, in the light of this forceful
presentation, whether they really did believe them as firmly as they
supposed they had.

Dear old Dr. Gilman had been milder--much milder as the years gained
upon him. And latterly, when he had preached, his voice had sounded like
the unavailing protest of one left far behind, who called out faintly
with unheeded warnings. They had loved him: but the modern world was
a busy world, and Dr. Gilman did not understand it. This man was
different. Here was what the Church taught, he said, and they might
slight it at their peril!

It is one thing to believe one's self orthodox, and quite another to
have that orthodoxy so definitely defined as to be compelled, whether or
no, to look it squarely in the face and own or disown it. Some indeed,
like Gordon Atterbury, stood the test; responded to the clarion call for
which they had been longing. But little Everett Constable, who also sat
on the vestry, was a trifle uncomfortable in being reminded that absence
from the Communion Table was perilous, although he would have been the
last to deny the efficacy of the Sacrament.

The new rector was plainly not a man who might be accused of policy in
pandering to the tastes of a wealthy and conservative flock. But if,
in the series of sermons which lasted from his advent until well after
Christmas, he had deliberately consulted their prejudices, he could not
have done better. It is true that he went beyond the majority of them,
but into a region which they regarded as preeminently safe,--a region
the soil of which was traditional. To wit: St. Paul had left to the
world a consistent theology. Historical research was ignored rather
than condemned. And it might reasonably have been gathered from these
discourses that the main proofs of Christ's divinity lay in his Virgin
Birth, his miracles, and in the fact that his body had risen from the
grave, had been seen by many, and even touched. Hence unbelief had no
excuse. By divine commission there were bishops, priests, and deacons in
the new hierarchy, and it was through the Apostolic Succession