“You mean,” said the rector, “that if I believe in the mission of the Church as I have partially stated it here tonight, I—­should stay and fight for it.”

“Precisely,” Mr. Bentley replied.

There was a note of enthusiasm, almost of militancy in the old gentleman’s tone that surprised and agitated Hodder.  He took a turn up and down the room before he answered.

“I ought to tell you that the view I expressed a moment ago is new to me.  I had not thought of it before, and it is absolutely at variance with any previous ideas I have held.  I can see that it must involve, if carried to its logical conclusion, a change in the conception of Christianity I have hitherto held.”

He was too intent upon following up the thought to notice Mr. Bentley’s expression of assent.

“And suppose,” he asked, “I were unable to come to any conclusion?  I will be frank, Mr. Bentley, and confess to you that at present I cannot see my way.  You have heard me preach—­you know what my beliefs have been.  They are shattered.  And, while I feel that there is some definite connection between the view of the Church which I mentioned and her message to the individual, I do not perceive it clearly.  I am not prepared at present to be the advocate of Christianity, because I do not know what Christianity is.  I thought I knew.

“I shall have to begin all over again, as though I had never taken orders, submit to a thorough test, examine the evidence impartially.  It is the only way.  Of this much I am sure, that the Church as a whole has been engaged in a senseless conflict with science and progressive thought, that she has insisted upon the acceptance of facts which are in violation of reason and which have nothing to do with religion.  She has taught them to me—­made them, in fact, a part of me.  I have clung to them as long as I can, and in throwing them over I don’t know where I shall land.”

His voice was measured, his words chosen, yet they expressed a withering indignation and contempt which were plainly the culmination of months of bewilderment—­now replaced by a clear-cut determination.

“I do not blame any individual,” he continued, “but the system by which clergymen are educated.

“I intend to stay here, now, without conducting any services, and find out for myself what the conditions are here in Dalton Street.  You know those people, Mr. Bentley, you understand them, and I am going to ask you to help me.  You have evidently solved the problem.”

Mr. Bentley rose.  And he laid a hand, which was not quite steady, on the rector’s shoulder.

“Believe me, sir,” he replied, “I appreciate something of what such a course must mean to you—­a clergyman.”  He paused, and a look came upon his face, a look that might scarce have been called a smile—­Hodder remembered it as a glow—­reminiscent of many things.  In it a life was summed ups in it understanding, beneficence, charity, sympathy, were all expressed, yet seemingly blended into one.  “I do not know what my testimony may be worth to you, my friend, but I give it freely.  I sometimes think I have been peculiarly fortunate.  But I have lived a great many years, and the older I get and the more I see of human nature the firmer has grown my conviction of its essential nobility and goodness.”