“Oh, dad,” she cried, “why are you so-late?  I’ve been watching for you.  I know you’ve let Mr. Hodder stay.”

She gazed at him with widened eyes.

“Don’t tell me that you’ve made him resign.  I can’t—­I won’t believe it.”

“He isn’t going to resign, Helen,” Langmaid replied, in an odd voice.

“He—­he refused to.”

CHAPTER XXV

“Rise, crowned with light!”

I

The Church of St. John’s, after a peaceful existence of so many years, had suddenly become the stage on which rapid and bewildering dramas were played:  the storm-centre of chaotic forces, hitherto unperceived, drawn from the atmosphere around her.  For there had been more publicity, more advertising.  “The Rector of St. John’s will not talk”—­such had been one headline:  neither would the vestry talk.  And yet, despite all this secrecy, the whole story of the suspension of Hodder’s salary was in print, and an editorial (which was sent to him) from a popular and sensational journal, on “tainted money,” in which Hodder was held up to the public as a martyr because he refused any longer to accept for the Church ill-gotten gains from Consolidated Tractions and the like.

This had opened again the floodgates of the mails, and it seemed as though every person who had a real or fancied grievance against Eldon Parr had written him.  Nor did others of his congregation escape.  The press of visitors at the parish house suddenly increased once more, men and women came to pour into his ears an appalling aeries of confessions; wrongs which, like Garvin’s, had engendered bitter hatreds; woes, temptations, bewilderments.  Hodder strove to keep his feet, sought wisdom to deal patiently with all, though at times he was tried to the uttermost.  And he held steadfastly before his mind the great thing, that they did come.  It was what he had longed for, prayed for, despaired of.  He was no longer crying in the empty wilderness, but at last in touch-in natural touch with life:  with life in all its sorrow, its crudity and horror.  He had contrived, by the grace of God, to make the connection for his church.

That church might have been likened to a ship sailing out of the snug harbour in which she had lain so long to range herself gallantly beside those whom she had formerly beheld, with complacent cowardice, fighting her fight:  young men and women, enlisted under other banners than her own, doing their part in the battle of the twentieth century for humanity.  Her rector was her captain.  It was he who had cut her cables, quelled, for a time at least, her mutineers; and sought to hearten those of her little crew who wavered, who shrank back appalled as they realized something of the immensity of the conflict in which her destiny was to be wrought out.