sense of responsibility, which
you now lack, would overwhelm you."

"You have made me out a rascal and a charlatan," said Eldon Parr, "and I
have listened' patiently in my desire to be fair, to learn from your
own lips whether there were anything in the extraordinary philosophy you
have taken up, and which you are pleased to call Christianity. If you
will permit me to be as frank as you have been, it appears to me as
sheer nonsense and folly, and if it were put into practice the world
would be reduced at once to chaos and anarchy."

"There is no danger, I am sorry to say, of its being put into practice
at once," said Hodder, smiting sadly.

"I hope not," answered the banker, dryly. "Utopia is a dream in which
those who do the rough work of the world cannot afford to indulge. And
there is one more question. You will, no doubt, deride it as practical,
but to my mind it is very much to the point. You condemn the business
practices in which I have engaged all my life as utterly unchristian. If
you are logical, you will admit that no man or woman who owns stock in a
modern corporation is, according to your definition, Christian, and, to
use your own phrase, can enter the Kingdom of God. I can tell you, as
one who knows, that there is no corporation in this country which, in
the struggle to maintain itself, is not forced to adopt the natural
law of the survival of the fittest, which you condemn. Your own salary,
while you had it, came from men who had made the money in corporations.
Business is business, and admits of no sentimental considerations. If
you can get around that fact, I will gladly bow to your genius. Should
you succeed in reestablishing St. John's on what you call a free
basis--and in my opinion you will not--even then the money, you would
live on, and which supported the church, would be directly or indirectly
derived from corporations."

"I do not propose to enter into an economics argument with you, Mr.
Parr, but if you tell me that the flagrant practices indulged in by
those who organized the Consolidated Tractions Company can be excused
under any code of morals, any conception of Christianity, I tell you
they cannot. What do we see today in your business world? Boards of
directors, trusted by stockholders, betraying their trust, withholding
information in order to profit thereby, buying and selling stock
secretly; stock watering, selling to the public diluted values,--all
kinds of iniquity and abuse of