xpress what I believe is Paul's true as distinguished from the
false of his two inconsistent theologies. It was this doctrine of Paul's
of redemption by faith, of reacting grace by an inevitable spiritual law
--of rebirth, if you will--that Luther and the Protestant reformers
revived and recognized, rightly, as the vital element of Christ's
teachings, although they did not succeed in separating it wholly from the
dross which clung to it. It is the leaven which has changed governments,
and which in the end, I am firmly convinced, will make true democracy
inevitable. And those who oppose democracy inherently dread its
workings.

"I do not know your views, but it is only fair to add at this time that I
no longer believe in the external and imposed authority of the Church in
the sense in which I formerly accepted it, nor in the virgin birth, nor
in certain other dogmas in which I once acquiesced. Other clergymen of
our communion have proclaimed, in speech and writing, their disbelief in
these things. I have satisfied my conscience as they have, and I mean to
make no secret of my change. I am convinced that not one man or woman
in ten thousand to-day who has rejected Christianity ever knew what
Christianity is. The science and archaic philosophy in which
Christianity has been swaddled and hampered is discredited, and the
conclusion is drawn that Christianity itself must be discredited."

"Ye're going to preach all this?" McCrae demanded, almost fiercely.

"Yes," Hodder replied, still uncertain as to his assistant's attitude,
"and more. I have fully reflected, and I am willing to accept all the
consequences. I understand perfectly, McCrae, that the promulgation
alone of the liberal orthodoxy of which I have spoken will bring me into
conflict with the majority of the vestry and the congregation, and that
the bishop will be appealed to. They will say, in effect, that I have
cheated them, that they hired one man and that another has turned up,
whom they never would have hired. But that won't be the whole story.
If it were merely a question of doctrine, I should resign. It's deeper
than that, more sinister." Hodder doubled up his hand, and laid it on
the table. "It's a matter," he said, looking into McCrae's eyes, "of
freeing this church from those who now hold it in chains. And the two
questions, I see clearly now, the doctrinal and the economic, are so
interwoven as to be inseparable. My former, ancient presentation of
Christ