This had opened again the floodgates of the mails, and it seemed as though every person who had a real or fancied grievance against Eldon Parr had written him.  Nor did others of his congregation escape.  The press of visitors at the parish house suddenly increased once more, men and women came to pour into his ears an appalling aeries of confessions; wrongs which, like Garvin’s, had engendered bitter hatreds; woes, temptations, bewilderments.  Hodder strove to keep his feet, sought wisdom to deal patiently with all, though at times he was tried to the uttermost.  And he held steadfastly before his mind the great thing, that they did come.  It was what he had longed for, prayed for, despaired of.  He was no longer crying in the empty wilderness, but at last in touch-in natural touch with life:  with life in all its sorrow, its crudity and horror.  He had contrived, by the grace of God, to make the connection for his church.

That church might have been likened to a ship sailing out of the snug harbour in which she had lain so long to range herself gallantly beside those whom she had formerly beheld, with complacent cowardice, fighting her fight:  young men and women, enlisted under other banners than her own, doing their part in the battle of the twentieth century for humanity.  Her rector was her captain.  It was he who had cut her cables, quelled, for a time at least, her mutineers; and sought to hearten those of her little crew who wavered, who shrank back appalled as they realized something of the immensity of the conflict in which her destiny was to be wrought out.

To carry on the figure, Philip Goodrich might have been deemed her first officer.  He, at least, was not appalled, but grimly conscious of the greatness of the task to which they had set their hands.  The sudden transformation of conservative St. John’s was no more amazing than that of the son of a family which had never been without influence in the community.  But that influence had always been conservative.  And Phil Goodrich had hitherto taken but a listless interest in the church of his fathers.  Fortune had smiled upon him, trusts had come to him unsought.  He had inherited the family talent for the law, the freedom to practise when and where he chose.  His love of active sport had led him into many vacations, when he tramped through marsh and thicket after game, and at five and forty there was not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his hard body.  In spite of his plain speaking, an overwhelming popularity at college had followed him to his native place, and no organization, sporting or serious, was formed in the city that the question was not asked, “What does Goodrich think about it?”