The rector shook his head.

“If this great chastisement with which you have been visited has given you no hint of the true meaning of life, nothing I can say will avail.  If you will not yet listen to the Spirit which is trying to make you comprehend, how then will you listen to me?  How am I to open your eyes to the paradox of truth, that he who would save his life shall lose it, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God?  If you will not believe him who said that, you will not believe me.  I can only beg of you, strive to understand, that your heart many be softened, that your suffering soul may be released.”

It is to be recorded, strangely, that Eldon Parr did not grow angry in his turn.  The burning eyes looked out at Hodder curiously, as at a being upon whom the vials of wrath were somehow wasted, against whom the weapons of power were of no account.  The fanatic had become a phenomenon which had momentarily stilled passion to arouse interest. . .  “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?”

“Do you mean to say”—­such was the question that sprang to Eldon Parr’s lips—­“that you take the Bible literally?  What is your point of view?  You speak about the salvation of souls, I have heard that kind of talk all my life.  And it is easy, I find, for men who have never known the responsibilities of wealth to criticize and advise.  I regard indiscriminate giving as nothing less than a crime, and I have always tried to be painstaking and judicious.  If I had taken the words you quoted at their face value, I should have no wealth to distribute to-day.

“I, too, Mr. Hodder, odd as it may seem to you, have had my dreams—­of doing my share of making this country the best place in the world to live in.  It has pleased providence to take away my son.  He was not fitted to carry on my work,—­that is the way—­with dreams.  I was to have taught him to build up, and to give, as I have given.  You think me embittered, hard, because I seek to do good, to interpret the Gospel in my own way.  Before this year is out I shall have retired from all active business.

“I intend to spend the rest of my life in giving away the money I have earned—­all of it.  I do not intend to spare myself, and giving will be harder than earning.  I shall found institutions for research of disease, hospitals, playgrounds, libraries, and schools.  And I shall make the university here one of the best in the country.  What more, may I ask, would you have me do?”

“Ah,” replied the rector, “it is not what I would have you do.  It is not, indeed, a question of ‘doing,’ but of seeing.”

“Of seeing?” the banker repeated.  “As I say, of using judgment.”