relic, perhaps, of the Calvinistic
determinism of his ancestors. He preached the same indefinite sermons,
with the same imperturbability, to the dwindled congregations in summer
and the enlarged ones in winter. But Hodder was capable of no such
resignation--if resignation it were, for the self-contained assistant
continued to be an enigma; and it was not without compunction that he
left, about the middle of July, on his own vacation. He was tired, and
yet he seemed to have accomplished nothing in this first year of the
city parish whereof he had dreamed. And it was, no doubt, for that very
reason that he was conscious of a depressing exhaustion as his train
rolled eastward over that same high bridge that spanned the hot and
muddy waters of the river. He felt a fugitive. In no months since he had
left the theological seminary, had he seemingly accomplished so little;
in no months had he had so magnificent an opportunity.

After he had reached the peaceful hills at Bremerton--where he had gone
on Mrs. Whitely's invitation--he began to look back upon the spring and
winter as a kind of mad nightmare, a period of ceaseless, distracted,
and dissipated activity, of rushing hither and thither with no results.
He had been aware of invisible barriers, restricting, hemming him in on
all sides. There had been no time for reflection; and now that he had a
breathing space, he was unable to see how he might reorganize his work
in order to make it more efficient.

There were other perplexities, brought about by the glimpses he had
had into the lives and beliefs--or rather unbeliefs--of his new
parishioners. And sometimes, in an unwonted moment of pessimism, he
asked himself why they thought it necessary to keep all that machinery
going when it had so little apparent effect on their lives? He sat
wistfully in the chancel of the little Bremerton church and looked into
the familiar faces of those he had found in it when he came to it,
and of those he had brought into it, wondering why he had been foolish
enough to think himself endowed for the larger work. Here, he had been
a factor, a force in the community, had entered into its life and
affections. What was he there?

Nor did it tend to ease his mind that he was treated as one who has
passed on to higher things.

"I was afraid you'd work too hard," said Mrs. Whitely, in her motherly
way. "I warned you against it, Mr. Hodder. You never spared yourself,
but in a big city parish it's d