Coffee was brought.  Hodder pushed back his chair, crossed his knees, and sat perfectly still regarding his host, his body suggesting a repose that did not interfere with his perceptive faculties.

“You don’t smoke, Mr. Hodder?”

The rector smiled and shook his head.  Mr. Parr selected a diminutive, yellow cigar and held it up.

“This,” he said, “has been the extent of my indulgence for twenty years.  They are made for me in Cuba.”

Hodder smiled again, but said nothing.

“I have had a letter from your former bishop, speaking of you in the highest terms,” he observed.

“The bishop is very kind.”

Mr. Parr cleared his throat.

“I am considerably older than you,” he went on, “and I have the future of St. John’s very much at heart, Mr. Hodder.  I trust you will remember this and make allowances for it as I talk to you.

“I need not remind you that you have a grave responsibility on your shoulders for so young a man, and that St. John’s is the oldest parish in the diocese.”

“I think I realize it, Mr. Parr,” said Hodder, gravely.  “It was only the opportunity of a larger work here that induced me to leave Bremerton.”

“Exactly,” agreed the banker.  “The parish, I believe, is in good running order—­I do not think you will see the necessity for many—­ahem—­changes.  But we sadly needed an executive head.  And, if I may say so, Mr. Hodder, you strike me as a man of that type, who might have made a success in a business career.”

The rector smiled again.

“I am sure you could pay me no higher compliment,” he answered.

For an instant Eldon Parr, as he stared at the clergyman, tightened his lips,—­lips that seemed peculiarly formed for compression.  Then they relaxed into what resembled a smile.  If it were one, the other returned it.

“Seriously,” Mr. Parr declared, “it does me good in these days to hear, from a young man, such sound doctrine as you preach.  I am not one of those who believe in making concessions to agnostics and atheists.  You were entirely right, in my opinion, when you said that we who belong to the Church—­and of course you meant all orthodox Christians—­should stand by our faith as delivered by the saints.  Of course,” he added, smiling, “I should not insist upon the sublapsarian view of election which I was taught in the Presbyterian Church as a boy.”

Hodder laughed, but did not interrupt.

“On the other hand,” Mr. Parr continued, “I have little patience with clergymen who would make religion attractive.  What does it amount to —­luring people into the churches on one pretext or another, sugar-coating the pill?  Salvation is a more serious matter.  Let the churches stick to their own.  We have at St. John’s a God-fearing, conservative congregation, which does not believe in taking liberties with sound and established doctrine.  And I may confess to you, Mr. Hodder, that we were naturally not a little anxious about Dr. Gilman’s successor, that we should not get, in spite of every precaution, a man tinged with the new and dangerous ideas so prevalent, I regret to say, among the clergy.  I need scarcely add that our anxieties have been set at rest.”