ted. The old man put on his spectacles, and drew from the top of
one of the bundles a letter.

"This is from one of your vestrymen, Mr. Gordon Atterbury," he said, and
proceeded to read it, slowly. When he had finished he laid it down.

"Is that, according to your recollection, Mr. Hodder, a fairly accurate
summary of the sermon you gave when you resumed the pulpit at the end of
the summer?"

"Yes, sir," answered the rector, "it is surprisingly accurate, with the
exception of two or three inferences which I shall explain at the proper
moment."

"Mr. Atterbury is to be congratulated on his memory," the bishop
observed a little dryly. "And he has saved me the trouble of reading
more. Now what are the inferences to which you object?"

Hodder stated them. "The most serious one," he added, "is that which he
draws from my attitude on the virgin birth. Mr. Atterbury insists, like
others who cling to that dogma, that I have become what he vaguely calls
an Unitarian. He seems incapable of grasping my meaning, that the only
true God the age knows, the world has ever known, is the God in Christ,
is the Spirit in Christ, and is there not by any material proof, but
because we recognize it spiritually. And that doctrine and dogma,
ancient speculations as to how, definitely, that spirit came to be in
Christ, are fruitless and mischievous to-day. Mr. Atterbury and others
seem actually to resent my identification of our Lord's Spirit with the
social conscience as well as the individual conscience of our time."

The bishop nodded.

"Hodder," he demanded abruptly, leaning forward over his desk, "how did
this thing happen?"

"You mean, sir--"

There was, in the bishop's voice, a note almost pathetic. "Oh, I do not
mean to ask you anything you may deem too personal. And God forbid, as I
look at you, as I have known you, that I should doubt your sincerity. I
am not your inquisitor, but your bishop and your friend, and I am asking
for your confidence. Six months ago you were, apparently, one of the
most orthodox rectors in the diocese. I recognize that you are not an
impulsive, sensational man, and I am all the more anxious to learn from
your own lips something of the influences, of the processes which have
changed you, which have been strong enough to impel you to risk the
position you have achieved."

By this unlooked-for appeal Hodder was not only disarmed, but smitten
with self-reproach at the thought of his former misjudgment