ertheless had queer sensations in listening to
ancient doctrines set forth with Emersonian conviction. Some were
courageous enough to ask themselves, in the light of this forceful
presentation, whether they really did believe them as firmly as they
supposed they had.

Dear old Dr. Gilman had been milder--much milder as the years gained upon
him. And latterly, when he had preached, his voice had sounded like the
unavailing protest of one left far behind, who called out faintly with
unheeded warnings. They had loved him: but the modern world was a busy
world, and Dr. Gilman did not understand it. This man was different.
Here was what the Church taught, he said, and they might slight it at
their peril!

It is one thing to believe one's self orthodox, and quite another to have
that orthodoxy so definitely defined as to be compelled, whether or no,
to look it squarely in the face and own or disown it. Some indeed, like
Gordon Atterbury, stood the test; responded to the clarion call for which
they had been longing. But little Everett Constable, who also sat on the
vestry, was a trifle uncomfortable in being reminded that absence from
the Communion Table was perilous, although he would have been the last to
deny the efficacy of the Sacrament.

The new rector was plainly not a man who might be accused of policy in
pandering to the tastes of a wealthy and conservative flock. But if,
in the series of sermons which lasted from his advent until well after
Christmas, he had deliberately consulted their prejudices, he could not
have done better. It is true that he went beyond the majority of them,
but into a region which they regarded as preeminently safe,--a region the
soil of which was traditional. To wit: St. Paul had left to the world
a consistent theology. Historical research was ignored rather than
condemned. And it might reasonably have been gathered from these
discourses that the main proofs of Christ's divinity lay in his Virgin
Birth, his miracles, and in the fact that his body had risen from the
grave, had been seen by many, and even touched. Hence unbelief had no
excuse. By divine commission there were bishops, priests, and deacons in
the new hierarchy, and it was through the Apostolic Succession that he,
their rector, derived his sacerdotal powers. There were, no doubt,
many obscure passages in the Scripture, but men's minds were finite;
a catholic acceptance was imperative, and the evils of the present day
--a suffic