He had, therefore, to pull himself together, to adjust himself to the unexpected greatness of soul with which he was being received before he began to sketch the misgivings he had felt from the early days of his rectorship of St. John’s; the helplessness and failure which by degrees had come over him.  He related how it had become apparent to him that by far the greater part of his rich and fashionable congregation were Christians only in name, who kept their religion in a small and impervious compartment where it did not interfere with their lives.  He pictured the yearning and perplexity of those who had come to him for help, who could not accept the old explanations, and had gone away empty; and he had not been able to make Christians of the poor who attended the parish house.  Finally, trusting in the bishop’s discretion, he spoke of the revelations he had unearthed in Dalton Street, and how these had completely destroyed his confidence in the Christianity he had preached, and how he had put his old faith to the test of unprejudiced modern criticism, philosophy, and science. . .

The bishop listened intently, his head bent, his eyes on he rector.

“And you have come out—­convinced?” he asked tremulously.  “Yes, yes, I see you have.  It is enough.”

He relapsed into thought, his wrinkled hand lying idly on the table.

“I need not tell you, my friend,” he resumed at length, “that a great deal of pressure has been brought to bear upon me in this matter, more than I have ever before experienced.  You have mortally offended, among others, the most powerful layman in the diocese, Mr. Parr, who complains that you have presumed to take him to task concerning his private affairs.”

“I told him,” answered Holder, “that so long as he continued to live the life he leads, I could not accept his contributions to St. John’s.”

“I am an old man,” said the bishop, “and whatever usefulness I have had is almost finished.  But if I were young to-day, I should pray God for the courage and insight you have shown, and I am thankful to have lived long enough to have known you.  It has, at least, been given one to realize that times have changed, that we are on the verge of a mighty future.  I will be frank to say that ten years ago, if this had happened, I should have recommended you for trial.  Now I can only wish you Godspeed.  I, too, can see the light, my friend.  I can see, I think, though dimly, the beginnings of a blending of all sects, of all religions in the increasing vision of the truth revealed in Jesus Christ, stripped, as you say, of dogma, of fruitless attempts at rational explanation.  In Japan and China, in India and Persia, as well as in Christian countries, it is coming, coming by some working of the Spirit the mystery of which is beyond us.  And nations and men who even yet know nothing of the Gospels are showing a willingness to adopt what is Christ’s, and the God of Christ.”