“But isn’t that just where most so-called Christians make their mistake?” she asked.  “Philanthropy and organized charity, as they exist to-day, have very little to do with the brotherhood of man.  Mightn’t it be you who are fooling yourselves instead of the incendiaries fooling themselves So long as you can make yourselves believe that this kind of charity is a logical carrying out of the Christian principles, so long are your consciences satisfied with the social system which your class, very naturally, finds so comfortable and edifying.  The weak and idiotic ought to be absurdly grateful for what is flung to them, and heaven is gained in the throwing.  In this way the rich inevitably become the elect, both here and hereafter, and the needle’s eye is widened into a gap.”

There was on Mr. Parr’s lips a smile not wholly pleasant to see.  Indeed, in the last few minutes there had been revealed to Hodder a side of the banker’s character which had escaped him in the two years of their acquaintance.

“I suppose,” said Mr. Parr, slowly, drumming on the table, “you would say that of the new settlement house of St. John’s, whereby we hope to raise a whole neighbourhood.”

“Yes, I should,” replied Alison, with spirit.  “The social system by which you thrive, and which politically and financially you strive to maintain, is diametrically opposed to your creed, which is supposed to be the brotherhood of man.  But if that were really your creed, you would work for it politically and financially.  You would see that your Church is trying to do infinitesimally what the government, but for your opposition, might do universally.  Your true creed is the survival of the fittest.  You grind these people down into what is really an economic slavery and dependence, and then you insult and degrade them by inviting them to exercise and read books and sing hymns in your settlement house, and give their children crackers and milk and kindergartens and sunlight!  I don’t blame them for not becoming Christians on that basis.  Why, the very day I left New York a man over eighty, who had been swindled out of all he had, rather than go to one of those Christian institutions deliberately forged a check and demanded to be sent to the penitentiary.  He said he could live and die there with some self-respect.”

“I might have anticipated that you would ultimately become a Socialist, Alison,” Mr. Parr remarked—­but his voice trembled.

“I don’t know whether I’m a Socialist or an Anarchist,” she answered.  Hodder thought be detected a note of hopelessness in her voice, and the spirit in it ebbed a little.  Not only did she seem indifferent to her father’s feeling—­which incidentally added fuel to it—­but her splendid disregard of him, as a clergyman, had made an oddly powerful appeal.  And her argument!  His feelings, as he listened to this tremendous arraignment of Eldon Parr by his daughter, are not easily to be described.