“You have evidently thought and read a great deal,” Dodder said, genuinely surprised.  “Why didn’t you come to me earlier?”

Eleanor bit her lip.  He smiled a little.

“I think I can answer that for you,” he went on; “you believe we are prejudiced,—­I’ve no doubt many of us are.  You think we are bound to stand up for certain dogmas, or go down, and that our minds are consequently closed.  I am not blaming you,” he added quickly, as she gave a sign of protest, “but I assure you that most of us, so far as my observation has gone, are honestly trying to proclaim the truth as we see it.”

“Insincerity is the last thing I should have accused you of, Mr. Hodder,” she said flushing.  “As I told you, you seem so sure.”

“I don’t pretend to infallibility, except so far as I maintain that the Church is the guardian of certain truths which human experience has verified.  Let me ask you if you have thought out the difference your conception of the Incarnation;—­the lack of a patently divine commission, as it were,—­makes in the doctrine of grace?”

“Yes, I have,” she answered, “a little.  It gives me more hope.  I cannot think I am totally depraved.  I do not believe that God wishes me to think so.  And while I am still aware of the distance between Christ’s perfection and my own imperfection, I feel that the possibility is greater of lessening that distance.  It gives me more self-respect, more self-reliance.  George Bridges says that the logical conclusion of that old doctrine is what philosophers call determinism—­Calvinistic predestination.  I can’t believe in that.  The kind of grace God gives me is the grace to help myself by drawing force from the element of him in my soul.  He gives me the satisfaction of developing.”

“Of one thing I am assured, Mrs. Goodrich,” Hodder replied, “that the logical result of independent thinking is anarchy.  Under this modern tendency toward individual creeds, the Church has split and split again until, if it keeps on, we shall have no Church at all to carry on the work of our Lord on earth.  History proves that to take anything away from the faith is to atrophy, to destroy it.  The answer to your arguments is to be seen on every side, atheism, hypocrisy, vice, misery, insane and cruel grasping after wealth.  There is only one remedy I can see,” he added, inflexibly, yet with a touch of sadness, “believe.”

“What if we can’t believe?” she asked.

“You can.”  He spoke with unshaken conviction.

“You can if you make the effort, and I am sure you will.  My experience is that in the early stages of spiritual development we are impervious to certain truths.  Will you permit me to recommend to you certain books dealing with these questions in a modern way?”

“I will read them gladly,” she said, and rose.

“And then, perhaps, we may have another talk,” he added, looking down at her.  “Give my regards to your husband.”