ould put up when the promises of Father Gordon were
realised. For it was understood that their fortunes should be retrieved
by his musical abilities, and his competence to select the most
attractive masses. Father Gordon was a type often found among amateur
musicians--a man with a slight technical knowledge, a good ear, a nice
voice, and absolutely no taste whatever. His natural ear was for obvious
rhythm, his taste coincided with the popular taste, and as the necessity
of attracting a congregation was paramount, it is easy to imagine how
easily he conceded to his natural inclinations. And the arguments with
which he rebutted those of his opponents were unanswerable, that
whatever moved the heart to the love of God was right; that if the plain
chant failed to help the soul to aspiration, we were justified in
substituting Rossini's _Stabat Mater_, or whatever other musical idiom
the neighbourhood craved for.

Religious rite, according to Father Gordon, should conform to the
artistic taste of the congregation, and he urged, with some force, that
the artistic taste of Southwark stood on quite as high a level as that
of Mayfair. To get a Mayfair audience they had only to follow the taste
of Southwark. And so, under his guidance, the Jesuits had increased
their orchestra and employed the best tenors that could be hired.
Nevertheless, their progress was slow. Father Gordon pleaded patience.
The neighbourhood was unfashionable; it was difficult to persuade their
friends to come so far. Mr. Innes answered that if they gave him a choir
of forty-five voices--he could do nothing with less--the West-end would
come at once to hear Palestrina. The distance, and the fact of the
church being in a slum, he maintained, would not be in itself a
drawback. Half the success of Bayreuth, he urged, is owing to its being
so far off. And this plan, too, seemed to possess some elements of
success, and so the Jesuits hesitated between very divergent methods by
which the same result might be attained.

A few flakes of snow were falling, and Evelyn and her father put up
their umbrellas as they crossed the road to the church. Three steps led
to the pointed door above which was the figure of the patron saint.

The nakedness of the unfinished and undecorated church was hidden in the
twilight of the approaching storm, and Evelyn trembled as she walked up
the aisle, so menacing seemed the darkness that descended from the sky.
The stained glass, blacken