unpretentious element of his parish who were finding in modern life an
increasingly difficult and bewildering problem. There was little Miss
Tallant, an assiduous guild worker whom he had thought the most orthodox
of persons; Miss Ramsay, who taught the children of the Italian mothers;
Mr. Carton, the organist, a professed free-thinker, with whom Hodder had
had many a futile argument; and Martha Preston, who told him that he had
made her think about religion seriously for the first time in her life.

And there were others, types equally diverse. Young men of the choir,
and others whom he had never seen, who informed him shyly that they would
come again, and bring their friends . . . .

And all the while, in the background, Hodder had been aware of a familiar
face--Horace Bentley's. Beside him, when at length he drew near, was his
friend Asa Waring--a strangely contrasted type. The uncompromising eyes
of a born leader of men flashed from beneath the heavy white eyebrows,
the button of the Legion of Honour gleaming in his well-kept coat seemed
emblematic of the fire which in his youth had driven him forth to fight
for the honour of his country--a fire still undimmed. It was he who
spoke first.

"This is a day I never expected to see, Mr. Hodder," he said, "for it has
brought back to this church the man to whom it owes its existence. Mr.
Bentley did more, by his labour and generosity, his true Christianity,
his charity and his wisdom, for St. John's than any other individual.
It is you who have brought him back, and I wish personally to express
my gratitude."

Mr. Bentley, in mild reproof, laid his hand upon the t, shoulder of his
old friend.

"Ah, Asa," he protested, "you shouldn't say such things."

"Had it not been for Mr. Bentley," Hodder explained, "I should not be
here to-day."

Asa Waring pierced the rector with his eye, appreciating the genuine
feeling with which these words were spoken. And yet his look contained
a question.

"Mr. Bentley," Hodder added, "has been my teacher this summer."

The old gentleman's hand trembled a little on the goldheaded stick.

"It is a matter of more pride to me than I can express, sir, that you are
the rector of this church with which my most cherished memories are
associated," he said. "But I cannot take any part of the credit you give
me for the splendid vision which you have raised up before us to-day, for
your inspired interpretation of history, of the meaning of ou