ng the long standing of the
parish, the situation of the church in a thickly populated district, is
not fulfilling its mission. But I have failed until now to perceive the
causes of that inefficiency."

"Inefficiency?" The banker repeated the word.

"Inefficiency," said Hodder. "The reproach, the responsibility is
largely mine, as the rector, the spiritual, head of the parish. I
believe I am right when I say that the reason for the decision, some
twenty years ago, to leave the church where it is, instead of selling
the property and building in the West End, was that it might minister
to the poor in the neighbourhood, to bring religion and hope into their
lives, and to exert its influence towards eradicating the vice and
misery which surround it."

"But I thought you had agreed," said Mr. Parr, coldly, "that we were to
provide for that in the new chapel and settlement house."

"For reasons which I hope to make plain to you, Mr. Parr," Hodder
replied, "those people can never be reached, as they ought to be
reached, by building that settlement house. The principle is wrong,
the day is past when such things can be done--in that way." He laid
an emphasis on these words. "It is good, I grant you, to care for the
babies and children of the poor, it is good to get young women and men
out of the dance-halls, to provide innocent amusement, distraction,
instruction. But it is not enough. It leaves the great, transforming
thing in the lives of these people untouched, and it will forever
remain untouched so long as a sense of wrong, a continually deepening
impression of an unchristian civilization upheld by the Church herself,
exists. Such an undertaking as that settlement house--I see clearly
now--is a palliation, a poultice applied to one of many sores, a
compromise unworthy of the high mission of the Church. She should go to
the root of the disease. It is her first business to make Christians,
who, by amending their own lives, by going out individually and
collectively into the life of the nation, will gradually remove these
conditions."

Mr. Parr sat drumming on the table. Hodder met his look.

"So you, too, have come to it," he said.

"Have come to what?"

"Socialism."

Hodder, in the state of clairvoyance in which he now surprisingly found
himself, accurately summed up the value and meaning of the banker's
sigh.

"Say, rather," he replied, "that I have come to Christianity. We
shall never have what is called soci