close her
doors."

"Well, I don't intend to quarrel with you, Holder. I suppose it can't be
helped that we look at these things differently, and I don't intend
to enter into a defence of business. It would take too long, and it
wouldn't help any." He got to his feet. "Whatever happens, it won't
interfere with our personal friendship, even if you think me a
highwayman and I think you a--"

"A fanatic," Holder supplied. He had risen, too, and stood, with a smile
on his face, gazing at the lawyer with an odd scrutiny.

"An idealist, I was going to say," Langmaid answered, returning the
smile, "I'll admit that we need them in the world. It's only when one of
them gets in the gear-box...."

The rector laughed. And thus they stood, facing each other.

"Langmaid," Holder asked, "don't you ever get tired and disgusted with
the Juggernaut car?"

The big lawyer continued to smile, but a sheepish, almost boyish
expression came over his face. He had not credited the clergyman with so
much astuteness.

"Business, nowadays, is--business, Holder. The Juggernaut car claims us
all. It has become-if you will permit me to continue to put my similes
into slang--the modern band wagon. And we lawyers have to get on it, or
fall by the wayside."

Holder stared into the fire.

"I appreciate your motive in coming here," he said, at length, "and I
do you the justice of believing it was friendly, that the fact that you
are, in a way, responsible for me to--to the congregation of St. John's
did not enter into it. I realize that I have made matters particularly
awkward for you. You have given them in me, and in good faith, something
they didn't bargain for. You haven't said so, but you want me to resign.
On the one hand, you don't care to see me tilting at the windmills, or,
better, drawing down on my head the thunderbolts of your gods. On the
other hand, you are just a little afraid for your gods. If the question
in dispute were merely an academic one, I'd accommodate you at once. But
I can't. I've thought it all out, and I have made up my mind that it
is my clear duty to remain here and, if I am strong enough, wrest this
church from the grip of Eldon Parr and the men whom he controls.

"I am speaking plainly, and I understand the situation thoroughly. You
will probably tell me, as others have done, that no one has ever opposed
Eldon Parr who has not been crushed. I go in with my eyes open, I am
willing to be crushed, if necessary. Yo