And though he knew that many clergymen read these books, Hodder found it impossible to overcome a nervous sense of adventure,—­nay (knowing his resolution), of apostasy, almost of clandestine guilt when he mentioned them.  And it seemed to him that the face of the clerk betrayed surprise.  One of the works was not in stock; he would send the others that afternoon.  Mr. Hodder would take them?  They made a formidable parcel, but a little handle was supplied and the rector hurried out, swinging himself on a Tower Street car.

It must not be thought that the whole of what is called modern criticism was new to Hodder.  This would indeed be too much of a reflection on the open-mindedness of the seminary from which he had graduated.  But he found himself, now, pondering a little cynically on that “open-mindedness”; on that concession—­if it had been a concession—­to the methods of science.  There had been in truth a course of lectures on this subject; but he saw now, very clearly, what a concerted effort had been put forward in the rest of the teaching to minimize and discredit it.  Even the professor who gave the lectures had had the air of deploring them.  Here it is, but on the whole one would better let it alone,—­such was the inference.  And he had let it alone, through all these years.

In the seminary, too, volumes by semi-learned clergymen had been thrust into his hands, efforts which Hodder recalled now, in spite of his mental state, with a smile.  These invariably championed the doctrine of the virgin birth as the pillar on which the Incarnation depended.  A favourite argument declared that although the Gospel texts in regard to it might be proven untrustworthy, the miraculous birth must have happened anyway!  And one of these clerical authors whom he had more recently read, actually had had the audacity to turn the weapons of the archenemy, science, back upon itself.  The virgin birth was an established fact in nature, and had its place in the social economy of the bee.  And did not parthenogenesis occur in the silk moth?

In brief, the conclusion impressed upon him by his seminary instruction was this:  that historical criticism had corrected some ideas and put some things in their right place.  What these things were remained sufficiently vague.  But whenever it attacked a cherished dogma it was, on general principles, wrong.

Once again in his cool study, he cut the cord with a trembling hand, and while he was eating the lunch his housekeeper had prepared, dipped into one of the larger volumes.  As he read again the critical disproofs he felt an acute, almost physical pain, as though a vital part of him were being cut away, as his mind dwelt upon those beautiful legends to which he had so often turned, and which had seemed the very fountain of his faith.  Legends! . . . .