he framed his reply. "To act as if
faith in eternal life and in the living Christ was the simplest thing in
the world, or a dogma to which one has to submit, is irreligious. . .
It is Christian to pray that God would give the Spirit to make us strong
to overcome the feelings and the doubts of nature. . . Where this
faith, obtained in this way, exists, it has always been supported by the
conviction that the Man lives who brought life and immortality to light.
To hold fast this faith is the goal of life, for only what we consciously
strive for is in this matter our own. What we think we possess is very
soon lost."

"The feelings and the doubts of nature!" The Divine Discontent, the
striving against the doubt that every honest soul experiences and admits.
Thus the contrast between her and these others who accepted and went
their several ways was brought home to him.

He longed to talk to her, but his days were full. Yet the very thought
of her helped to bear him up as his trials, his problems accumulated; nor
would he at any time have exchanged them for the former false peace which
had been bought (he perceived more and more clearly) at the price of
compromise.

The worst of these trials, perhaps, was a conspicuous article in a
newspaper containing a garbled account of his sermon and of the sensation
it had produced amongst his fashionable parishioners. He had refused to
see the reporter, but he had been made out a hero, a socialistic champion
of the poor. The black headlines were nauseating; and beside them, in
juxtaposition, were pen portraits of himself and of Eldon Parr. There
were rumours that the banker had left the church until the recalcitrant
rector should be driven out of it; the usual long list of Mr. Parr's
benefactions was included, and certain veiled paragraphs concerning his
financial operations. Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Plimpton, Mr. Constable, did not
escape,--although they, too, had refused to be interviewed . . . .

The article brought to the parish house a bevy of reporters who had to be
fought off, and another batch of letters, many of them from ministers, in
approval or condemnation.

His fellow-clergymen called, some to express sympathy and encouragement,
more of them to voice in person indignant and horrified protests. Dr.
Annesley of Calvary--a counterpart of whose rubicund face might have
been found in the Council of Trent or in mediaeval fish-markets
--pronounced his anathemas with his hands folded