verwhelming popularity at
college had followed him to his native place, and no organization,
sporting or serious, was formed in the city that the question was not
asked, "What does Goodrich think about it?"

His whole-souled enlistment in the cause of what was regarded as radical
religion became, therefore, the subject of amazed comment in the
many clubs he now neglected. The "squabble" in St. John's, as it was
generally referred to, had been aired in the press, but such was the
magic in a name made without conscious effort that Phil Goodrich's
participation in the struggle had a palpably disarming effect: and
there were not a few men who commonly spent their Sunday mornings behind
plate-glass windows, surrounded by newspapers, as well as some in the
athletic club (whose contests Mr. Goodrich sometimes refereed) who
went to St. John's out of curiosity and who waited, afterwards, for
an interview with Phil or the rector. The remark of one of these was
typical of others. He had never taken much stock in religion, but if
Goodrich went in for it he thought he'd go and look it over.

Scarcely a day passed that Phil did not drop in at the parish house....
And he set himself, with all the vigour of an unsquandered manhood, to
help Hodder to solve the multitude of new problems by which they were
beset.

A free church was a magnificent ideal, but how was it to be carried on
without an Eldon Parr, a Ferguson, a Constable, a Mrs. Larrabbee, or a
Gore who would make up the deficit at the end of the year? Could weekly
contributions, on the envelope system, be relied upon, provided the
people continued to come and fill the pews of absent and outraged
parishioners? The music was the most expensive in the city, although
Mr. Taylor, the organist, had come to the rector and offered to cut his
salary in half, and to leave that in abeyance until the finances could
be adjusted. And his example had been followed by some of the high-paid
men in the choir. Others had offered to sing without pay. And there were
the expenses of the parish house, an alarming sum now Eldon Parr had
withdrawn: the salaries of the assistants. Hodder, who had saved a
certain sum in past years, would take nothing for the present.... Asa
Waring and Phil Goodrich borrowed on their own responsibility...

II

Something of the overwhelming nature of the forces Hodder had summoned
was visibly apparent on that first Sunday after what many had called
his apostasy. I