“What do you mean?” Mr. Atterbury demanded.

“I mean that they do not succeed in making Christians.”

“And by that you imply that the members of your congregation, those who have been brought up and baptized and confirmed in this church, are not Christians?”

“I am sorry to say a great many of them are not,” said the rector.

“In other words, you affirm that the sacrament of baptism is of no account.”

“I affirm that baptism with water is not sufficient.”

“I’m afraid that this is very grave,” Mr. Hodder.

“I quite agree with you,” replied the rector, looking straight at his vestryman.

“And I understood,—­” the other went on, clearing his throat once more, “I think I have it correctly stated in my notes, but I wish to be quite clear, that you denied the doctrine of the virgin birth.”

Hodder made a strong effort to control himself.

“What I have said I have said,” he answered, “and I have said it in the hope that it might make some impression upon the lives of those to whom I spoke.  You were one of them, Mr. Atterbury.  And if I repeat and amplify my meaning now, it must be understood that I have no other object except that of putting you in the way of seeing that the religion of Christ is unique in that it is dependent upon no doctrine or dogma, upon no external or material sign or proof or authority whatever.  I am utterly indifferent to any action you may contemplate taking concerning me.  Read your four Gospels carefully.  If we do not arrive, through contemplation of our Lord’s sojourn on this earth, of his triumph over death, of his message—­which illuminates the meaning of our lives here—­at that inner spiritual conversion of which he continually speaks, and which alone will give us charity, we are not Christians.”

“But the doctrines of the Church, which we were taught from childhood to believe?  The doctrines which you once professed, and of which you have now made such an unlooked-for repudiation!”

“Yes, I have changed,” said the rector, gazing seriously at the twitching figure of his vestryman, “I was bound, body and soul, by those very doctrines.”  He roused himself.  “But on what grounds do you declare, Mr. Atterbury,” he demanded, somewhat sternly, “that this church is fettered by an ancient and dogmatic conception of Christianity?  Where are you to find what are called the doctrines of the Church?  What may be heresy in one diocese is not so in another, and I can refer to you volumes written by ministers of this Church, in good standing, whose published opinions are the same as those I expressed in my sermon of yesterday.  The very cornerstone of the Church is freedom, but many have yet to discover this, and we have held in our Communion men of such divergent views as Dr. Pusey and Phillips Brooks.  Mr. Newman, in his Tract Ninety, which was sincerely written, showed that the Thirty-nine Articles were