opening, contemplated in no little
perplexity and travail the gaunt and non-committal face before him:

"McCrae," he began at length, "you must have thought my conduct this
summer most peculiar. I wish to thank you, first of all, for the
consideration you have shown me, and to tell you how deeply I appreciate
your taking the entire burden of the work of the parish."

McCrae shook his head vigorously, but did not speak.

"I owe it to you to give you some clew to what happened to me," the
rector continued, "although I have an idea that you do not need much
enlightenment on this matter. I have a feeling that you have somehow
been aware of my discouragement during the past year or so, and of the
causes of it. You yourself hold ideals concerning the Church which you
have not confided to me. Of this I am sure. I came here to St. John's
full of hope and confidence, gradually to lose both, gradually to realise
that there was something wrong with me, that in spite of all my efforts
I was unable to make any headway in the right direction. I became
perplexed, dissatisfied--the results were so meagre, so out of proportion
to the labour. And the very fact that those who may be called our chief
parishioners had no complaint merely added to my uneasiness. That kind
of success didn't satisfy me, and I venture to assume it didn't satisfy
you."

Still McCrae made no sign.

"Finally I came to what may be termed a double conclusion. In the first
place, I began to see more and more clearly that our modern civilization
is at fault, to perceive how completely it is conducted on the
materialistic theory of the survival of the fittest rather than that of
the brotherhood of man, and that those who mainly support this church
are, consciously or not, using it as a bulwark for the privilege they
have gained at the expense of their fellow-citizens. And my conclusion
was that Christianity must contain some vital germ which I had somehow
missed, and which I must find if I could, and preach and release it.
That it was the release of this germ these people feared unconsciously.
I say to you, at the risk of the accusation of conceit, that I believed
myself to have a power in the pulpit if I could only discover the truth."

Hodder thought he detected, as he spoke these words, a certain relaxation
of the tension.

"For a while, as the result of discouragement, of cowardice, I may say,
of the tearing-down process of the theological structure--built