as what he had spurned. Luxury in contrast
to Dalton Street, to the whirring factories near the church which
discharged, at nightfall, their quotas of wan women and stunted children.
And yet here he was catering to luxury, providing religion for it!
Religion!

Early in November he heard that Mrs. Larrabbee had suddenly decided to go
abroad without returning home. . . .

That winter Hodder might have been likened to a Niagara for energy; an
unharnessed Niagara--such would have been his own comment. He seemed to
turn no wheels, or only a few at least, and feebly. And while the
spectacle of their rector's zeal was no doubt an edifying one to his
parishioners, they gave him to understand that they would have been
satisfied with less. They admired, but chided him gently; and in
February Mr. Parr offered to take him to Florida. He was tired, and it
was largely because he dreaded the reflection inevitable in a period of
rest, that he refused. . . . And throughout these months, the feeling
recurred, with increased strength, that McCrae was still watching him,
--the notion persisted that his assistant held to a theory of his own,
if he could but be induced to reveal it. Hodder refrained from making
the appeal. Sometimes he was on the point of losing patience with this
enigmatic person.

Congratulations on the fact that his congregation was increasing brought
him little comfort, since a cold analysis of the newcomers who were
renting pews was in itself an indication of the lack of that thing he
so vainly sought. The decorous families who were now allying themselves
with St. John's did so at the expense of other churches either more
radical or less fashionable. What was it he sought? What did he wish?
To fill the church to overflowing with the poor and needy as well as the
rich, and to enter into the lives of all. Yet at a certain point he met
a resistance that was no less firm because it was baffling. The Word, on
his lips at least, seemed to have lost it efficacy. The poor heeded it
not, and he preached to the rich as from behind a glass. They went on
with their carnival. Why this insatiate ambition on his part in an age
of unbelief? Other clergymen, not half so fortunate, were apparently
satisfied; or else--from his conversation with them--either oddly
optimistic or resigned. Why not he?

It was strange, in spite of everything, that hope sprang up within him,
a recurrent geyser.

Gradually, almost imperceptibly, he found