it out, as
goods were always delivered from Mr. Moggridge's shop, with despatch.
Also in some dim far-off way Mr. Moggridge's mind had, all
unconsciously, been stirred by vibrations of what we call the New
Spirit. The new spirit of any age works its way even into its
businesses, and though Mr. Moggridge wouldn't have so described it, it
was the "New Spirit" that had made the success of his provision shop.
Speaking of the need of New Zion, Mr. Moggridge called it "new blood."
He meant the "New Spirit;" and it was in reply to his advertisement for
a new pastor, that the "New Spirit" in the person of Theophilus
Londonderry came one Sunday to preach at New Zion.

CHAPTER IV

ENDS QUITE ROMANTICALLY

Eli Moggridge was a judge of men, and he liked Theophilus Londonderry at
a glance. Theophilus Londonderry was also a judge of men, and he liked
Eli Moggridge. In fact, two men that needed each other had met.

You couldn't help laughing a little at Mr. Moggridge at first, soon you
couldn't help respecting him,--Theophilus Londonderry was almost to know
what it was to love him. Indeed, that Mr. Moggridge was just the man he
was was a matter of no small importance to the young minister. A chief
deacon is nothing less than a fate, and it is in his power to be no
little of a tyrant. Had Mr. Moggridge's interest in New Zion been of a
different character, he would inevitably have been as great a hindrance
as he was to prove a help. Fortunately that interest was recreative
rather than severely religious. It was to be for him a sort of
Sunday-business to which he was to devote his vast spare energies. He
wanted to see it a "going concern," and, hating stagnation in his
neighbourhood, he looked about for a specialist whom he could trust to
make it move and hum and whizz.

Luckily, in so far as he was an amateur theologian, he was broad, with
further mental allowances for expansion. What was wanted at New Zion, he
explained to the young minister at supper after the close of an evening
service which had more than kept the promise of the morning, was not
Dogma, but common-sense every-day religion, a religion to help a man in
his business, not a Sunday-coat religion, a cheerful human religion; and
it happened that something of this very sort was what Theophilus
Londonderry was eagerly prepared to supply.

The stipend was small, a poor sixty pounds a year, but Mr. Moggridge
guaranteed to swell it to a hundred if necessary from h