“Yes, it is that,” said Engel, still puzzled, but encouraged, eyeing the strong face of the other.  “And they lament that the ministry hasn’t more big men.  Sometimes they get one with the doctrinal type of mind —­a Newman—­but how often?  And even a Newman would be of little avail to-day.  It is Eucken who says that the individual, once released from external authority, can never be turned back to it.  And they have been released by the hundreds of thousands ever since Luther’s time, are being freed by the hundreds of thousands to-day.  Democracy, learning, science, are releasing them, and no man, no matter how great he may be, can stem that tide.  The able men in the churches now—­like your Phillips Brooks, who died too soon—­are beginning to see this.  They are those who developed after the vows of the theological schools were behind them.  Remove those vows, and you will see the young men come.  Young men are idealists, Mr. Hodder, and they embrace other professions where the mind is free, and which are not one whit better paid than the ministry.

“And what is the result,” he cried, “of the senseless insistence on the letter instead of the spirit of the poetry of religion?  Matthew Arnold was a thousand times right when he inferred that Jesus Christ never spoke literally and yet he is still being taken literally by most churches, and all the literal sayings which were put into his mouth are maintained as Gospel truth!  What is the result of proclaiming Christianity in terms of an ancient science and theology which awaken no quickening response in the minds and hearts of to-day?  That!” The librarian thrust a yellow hand towards the pile of books.  “The new wine has burst the old skin and is running all over the world.  Ah, my friend, if you could only see, as I do, the yearning for a satisfying religion which exists in this big city!  It is like a vacuum, and those books are rushing to supply it.  I little thought,” he added dreamily, “when I renounced the ministry in so much sorrow that one day I should have a church of my own.  This library is my church, and men and women of all creeds come here by the thousands.  But you must pardon me.  I have been carried away—­I forgot myself.”

“Mr. Engel,” replied the rector, “I want you to regard me as one of your parishioners.”

The librarian looked at him mutely, and the practical, desiccated little person seemed startlingly transformed into a mediaeval, German mystic.

“You are a great man, Mr. Hodder,” he said.  “I might have guessed it.”

It was one of the moments when protest would have been trite, superfluous.  And Hodder, in truth, felt something great swelling within him, something that was not himself, and yet strangely was.  But just what—­in view of his past strict orthodoxy and limited congregation —­Mr. Engel meant, he could not have said.  Had the librarian recognized, without confession on his part, the change in him? divined his future intentions?