“I pray God you may never have,” exclaimed Mr. Parr, with more feeling than he had yet shown.

“Woman’s suffrage, and what is called feminism in general, have never penetrated to Bremerton.  Indeed, I must confess to have been wholly out of touch with the problems to which you refer, although of course I have been aware of their existence.”

“You will meet them here,” said the banker, significantly.

“Yes,” the rector replied thoughtfully, “I can see that.  I know that the problems here will be more complicated, more modern,—­more difficult.  And I thoroughly agree with you that their ultimate solution is dependent on Christianity.  If I did not believe,—­in spite of the evident fact which you point out of the Church’s lost ground, that her future will be greater than her past, I should not be a clergyman.”

The quiet but firm note of faith was, not lost on the financier, and yet was not he quite sure what was to be made of it?  He had a faint and fleeting sense of disquiet, which registered and was gone.

“I hope so,” he said vaguely, referring perhaps to the resuscitation of which the rector spoke.  He drummed on the table.  “I’ll go so far as to say that I, too, think that the structure can be repaired.  And I believe it is the duty of the men of influence—­all men of influence—­to assist.  I don’t say that men of influence are not factors in the Church to-day, but I do say that they are not using the intelligence in this task which they bring to bear, for instance, on their business.”

“Perhaps the clergy might help,” Hodder suggested, and added more seriously, “I think that many of them are honestly trying to do so.”

“No doubt of it.  Why is it,” Mr. Parr continued reflectively, “that ministers as a whole are by no means the men they were?  You will pardon my frankness.  When I was a boy, the minister was looked up to as an intellectual and moral force to be reckoned with.  I have heard it assigned, as one reason, that in the last thirty years other careers have opened up, careers that have proved much more attractive to young men of ability.”

“Business careers?” inquired the rector.

“Precisely!”

“In other words,” said Hodder, with his curious smile, “the ministry gets the men who can’t succeed at anything else.”

“Well, that’s putting it rather strong,” answered Mr. Parr, actually reddening a little.  “But come now, most young men would rather be a railroad president than a bishop,—­wouldn’t they?”

“Most young men would,” agreed Hodder, quickly, “but they are not the young men who ought to be bishops, you’ll admit that.”

The financier, be it recorded to his credit, did not lack appreciation of this thrust, and, for the first time, he laughed with something resembling heartiness.  This laughter, in which Hodder joined, seemed suddenly to put them on a new footing—­a little surprising to both.