ave exchanged them for the former false peace
which had been bought (he perceived more and more clearly) at the price
of compromise.

The worst of these trials, perhaps, was a conspicuous article in
a newspaper containing a garbled account of his sermon and of the
sensation it had produced amongst his fashionable parishioners. He
had refused to see the reporter, but he had been made out a hero, a
socialistic champion of the poor. The black headlines were nauseating;
and beside them, in juxtaposition, were pen portraits of himself and of
Eldon Parr. There were rumours that the banker had left the church until
the recalcitrant rector should be driven out of it; the usual long list
of Mr. Parr's benefactions was included, and certain veiled paragraphs
concerning his financial operations. Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Plimpton, Mr.
Constable, did not escape,--although they, too, had refused to be
interviewed....

The article brought to the parish house a bevy of reporters who had
to be fought off, and another batch of letters, many of them from
ministers, in approval or condemnation.

His fellow-clergymen called, some to express sympathy and encouragement,
more of them to voice in person indignant and horrified protests. Dr.
Annesley of Calvary--a counterpart of whose rubicund face might
have been found in the Council of Trent or in mediaeval
fish-markets--pronounced his anathemas with his hands folded comfortably
over his stomach, but eventually threw to the winds every vestige of his
ecclesiastical dignity....

Then there came a note from the old bishop, who was traveling. A kindly
note, withal, if non-committal,--to the effect that he had received
certain communications, but that his physician would not permit him
to return for another ten days or so. He would then be glad to see Mr.
Holder and talk with him.

What would the bishop do? Holder's relations with him had been more than
friendly, but whether the bishop's views were sufficiently liberal to
support him in the extreme stand he had taken he could not surmise. For
it meant that the bishop, too, must enter into a conflict with the first
layman of his diocese, of whose hospitality he had so often partaken,
whose contributions had been on so lordly a scale. The bishop was in
his seventieth year, and had hitherto successfully fought any attempt to
supply him with an assistant,--coadjutor or suffragan.

At such times the fear grew upon Hodder that he might be recommended fo