ngs, luring him to his death; or, at
other times, as the mutinous daughter of revolt. But when he felt, in
memory, the warm touch of her hand, the old wildness of his nature
responded, he ceased to speculate or care, and he longed only to crush
and subdue her by the brute power of the man in him. For good or bad,
she had woven her spell.

Here was the old, elemental, twofold contest, carnal and spiritual,
thoroughly revived! . . .

He recalled, in his musings, the little theological school surrounded
by southern woods and fields, where he had sometime walked under autumn
foliage with the elderly gentleman who had had such an influence on his
life--the dean. Mild-mannered and frail, patient in ordinary converse,
--a lion for the faith. He would have died for it as cheerfully as any
martyr in history. By the marvels of that faith Holder had beheld, from
his pew in the chapel, the little man transformed. He knew young men,
their perplexities and temptations, and he dealt with them personally,
like a father. Holder's doubts were stilled, he had gained power of his
temptations and peace for his soul, and he had gone forth inspired by the
reminder that there was no student of whom the dean expected better
things. Where now were the thousands of which he had dreamed, and which
he was to have brought into the Church? . . .

Now, he asked himself, was it the dean, or the dean's theology through
which his regeneration had come? Might not the inherent goodness of the
dean be one thing, and his theology quite another? Personality again!
He recalled one of the many things which Alison Parr had branded on his
memory,--"the belief, the authority in which the man is clothed, and not
the man!" The dean's God had remained silent on the subject of
personality. Or, at the best, he had not encouraged it; and there were
--Hodder could not but perceive--certain contradictions in his character,
which were an anomalistic blending of that of the jealous God of Moses
and of the God of Christ. There must be continuity--God could not
change. Therefore the God of infinite love must retain the wrath which
visited sins of the fathers on the children, which demanded sacrifice,
atonement,--an exact propitiation for his anger against mankind. An
innocent life of sorrow and suffering!

And again, "You and your religion are as far apart as the poles!" Had
he, Hodder, outgrown the dean's religion, or had it ever been his own?
Was there, after all, such