on,
a poultice applied to one of many sores, a compromise unworthy of the
high mission of the Church. She should go to the root of the disease.
It is her first business to make Christians, who, by amending their own
lives, by going out individually and collectively into the life of the
nation, will gradually remove these conditions."

Mr. Parr sat drumming on the table. Hodder met his look.

"So you, too, have come to it," he said.

"Have come to what?"

"Socialism."

Hodder, in the state of clairvoyance in which he now surprisingly found
himself, accurately summed up the value and meaning of the banker's sigh.

"Say, rather," he replied, "that I have come to Christianity. We shall
never have what is called socialism until there is no longer any
necessity for it, until men, of their owe free will, are ready to
renounce selfish, personal ambition and power and work for humanity,
for the state."

Mr. Parr's gesture implied that he cared not by what name the thing was
called, but he still appeared strangely, astonishingly calm;--Hodder,
with all his faculties acute, apprehended that he was dangerously calm.
The man who had formerly been his friend was now completely obliterated,
and he had the feeling almost of being about to grapple, in mortal
combat, with some unknown monster whose tactics and resources were
infinite, whose victims had never escaped. The monster was in Eldon
Parr--that is how it came to him. The waxy, relentless demon was
aroused. It behooved him, Hodder, to step carefully . . . .

"That is all very fine, Mr. Hodder, very altruistic, very Christian,
I've no doubt-but the world doesn't work that way." (These were the
words borne in on Hodder's consciousness.) "What drives the world is the
motive furnished by the right of acquiring and holding property. If we
had a division to-day, the able men would come out on top next year."

The rector shook his head. He remembered, at that moment, Horace
Bentley.

"What drives the world is a far higher motive, Mr. Parr, the motive
with which have been fired the great lights of history, the motive of
renunciation and service which is transforming governments, which is
gradually making the world a better place in which to live. And we are
seeing men and women imbued with it, rising in ever increasing numbers on
every side to-day."

"Service!" Eldon Parr had seized upon the word as it passed and held it.
"What do you think my life has been? I suppose," he s