"You mean," said the rector, "that they will accept nothing from me." It came from him, spontaneously, like a cry. He had not meant to say it. "I don"t blame them. I don"t blame them for losing their faith in G.o.d and man, in the Church. I ought to have seen it before, but I was blind, incredibly blind--until it struck me in the face. You saw it, sir, and you left a church from which the poor are thrust out, which refuses to heed the first precept of its Master."
"I saw it," answered Mr. Bentley, "but I could do nothing. Perhaps you can do--something."
"Ah!" Hodder exclaimed sharply, "why do you say that? The Church is paralyzed, chained. How can she reach these wretched people who are the victims of the ruthless individualism and greed of those who control her? You know--that man, Mr. Bentley." (Hodder could not bring himself to p.r.o.nounce Eldon Parr"s name.) "I had an affection for him, I pitied him, because he suffers--"
"Yes," echoed Mr. Bentley, "he suffers."
Hodder was momentarily arrested by the sadness of his tone.
"But he doesn"t know why he suffers--he cannot be made to see," the rector went on. "And he is making others suffer,--hideously, while he imagines himself a Christian. He is the Church to that miserable, hopeless wretch we saw to-day, and to hundreds of the same kind whom he has driven to desperation. And I--who am supposed to be the vicar of G.o.d--I am powerless. They have a contempt for me, a just contempt. They thrust me out of their doors, bid me to return and minister to their oppressors. You were right to leave, and I should have left long since."
He had not spoken with violence, or with a lack of control. He seemed rather to have regained a mastery of himself, and felt as a man from whom the shackles have been struck, proclaiming his freedom. Mr.
Bentley"s eyes lighted in involuntary response as he gazed at the figure and face before him. He pressed his hands together.
"If you will forgive a curiosity, Mr. Hodder, that is somewhat due to my interest in a church with which I have many precious a.s.sociations, may I ask if this is a sudden determination on your part?"
"No," Hodder said. "I have known ever since I came here that something was wrong, but at first I couldn"t see it, and after that I wouldn"t see it. That is about what happened, as I look back on it.
"But the farther in I went," Hodder continued, "the more tangled and bewildered I became. I was hypnotized, I think," he added with a gesture,--"hypnotized, as a man is who never takes his eyes from a pattern. I wanted to get at this neighbourhood--Dalton Street--I mean, and finally I agreed to the establishment of a settlement house over here, to be paid for largely by Eldon Parr and Francis Ferguson. I couldn"t see the folly of such an undertaking--the supreme irony of it, until--until it was pointed out to me." He hesitated; the remembrance of Alison Parr ran through him, a thread of pain. "And even then I tried to dodge the issue, I tried to make myself believe that good might flow out of evil; that the Church, which is supposed to be founded on the highest ideal ever presented to man, might compromise and be practical, that she might accept money which had been wrung from a trusting public by extortion, by thinly disguised thievery such as this Consolidated Tractions Company fraud, and do good with it! And at last I made up my mind to go away, to-day, to a quiet place where I might be alone, and reflect, when by a singular circ.u.mstance I was brought into contact with this man, Garvin. I see now, clearly enough, that if I had gone, I should never have come back."
"And you still intend to go?" Mr. Bentley asked.
Hodder leaned his elbow against the mantel. The lamplight had a curious effect on Mr. Bentley"s face.
"What can I do?" he demanded. The question was not aimed directly at his host--it was in the nature of a renewed appeal to a tribunal which had been mute, but with which he now seemed vaguely aware of a certain contact. "Even supposing I could bring myself to accept the compromise--now that I see it clearly, that the end justifies the means--what good could I accomplish? You saw what happened this afternoon--the man would have driven me out if, it hadn"t been for you.
This whole conception of charity is a crime against civilization--I had to have that pointed out to me, too,--this system of legalized or semi-legalized robbery and the distribution of largesse to the victims.
The Church is doing wrong, is stultifying herself in encouraging it. She should set her face rigidly against it, stand for morality and justice and Christianity in government, not for pauperizing. It is her mission to enlighten these people, all people--to make them self-respecting, to give them some notion of the dignity of their souls and their rights before G.o.d and man."
"Aren"t you yourself suggesting," said Mr. Bentley, "the course which will permit you to remain?"
Hodder was silent. The thought struck him with tremendous force. Had he suggested it? And how--why? Could it be done? Could he do it or begin it?
"We have met at last in a singular way," he heard Mr. Bentley going on, "in a way that has brushed aside the conventions, in a way--I am happy to say--that has enabled you to give me your confidence. And I am an old man,--that has made it easier. I saw this afternoon, Mr. Hodder, that you were troubled, although you tried to hide it."
"I knew that you saw it," Hodder said.
"Nor was it difficult for me to guess something of the cause of it. The same thing has troubled me."
"You?"
"Yes," Mr. Bentley answered. "I left St. John"s, but the habits and affections of a lifetime are not easily severed. And some time before I left it I began to have visions of a future for it. There was a question, many years ago, as to whether a new St. John"s should not be built in the West End, on a site convenient to the parishioners, and this removal I opposed. Mr. Waring stood by me. We foresaw the day when this district would be--what it is now--the precarious refuge of the unfortunate in the battle of life, of just such unhappy families as the Garvins, of miserable women who sell themselves to keep alive. I thought of St. John"s, as you did, as an oasis in a desert of misery and vice.
At that time I, too, believed in the system of charities which you have so well characterized as pauperizing."
"And now?"
Mr. Bentley smiled, as at a reminiscence.
"My eyes were opened," he replied, and in these simple words summed up and condemned it all. "They are craving bread, and we fling them atones.
I came here. It was a house I owned, which I saved from the wrecks, and as I look back upon what the world would call a misfortune, sir, I can see that it was a propitious event, for me. The street "ran down,"
as the saying goes. I grew gradually to know these people, my new neighbours, largely through their children, and I perceived many things I had not dreamed of--before then. I saw how the Church was hampered, fettered; I saw why they disliked and distrusted it."
"And yet you still believed that it had a mission?" Hodder interrupted.
He had been listening with rapt attention.
"I still believed it," said Mr. Bentley. "My conception of that mission changed, grew, and yet it seemed further and further from fulfilment.
And then you came to St. John"s."
"I!" The cry was involuntary.
"You," Mr. Bentley repeated. "Sometimes," he added whimsically, "I go there, as I have told you. I saw you, I heard you preach. I talked to my friend Waring about you. I saw that your eyes were not opened, but I think I had a certain presentiment, for which I do not pretend to account, that they would be opened."
"You mean," said the rector, "that if I believe in the mission of the Church as I have partially stated it here tonight, I--should stay and fight for it."
"Precisely," Mr. Bentley replied.
There was a note of enthusiasm, almost of militancy in the old gentleman"s tone that surprised and agitated Hodder. He took a turn up and down the room before he answered.
"I ought to tell you that the view I expressed a moment ago is new to me. I had not thought of it before, and it is absolutely at variance with any previous ideas I have held. I can see that it must involve, if carried to its logical conclusion, a change in the conception of Christianity I have hitherto held."
He was too intent upon following up the thought to notice Mr. Bentley"s expression of a.s.sent.
"And suppose," he asked, "I were unable to come to any conclusion? I will be frank, Mr. Bentley, and confess to you that at present I cannot see my way. You have heard me preach--you know what my beliefs have been. They are shattered. And, while I feel that there is some definite connection between the view of the Church which I mentioned and her message to the individual, I do not perceive it clearly. I am not prepared at present to be the advocate of Christianity, because I do not know what Christianity is. I thought I knew.
"I shall have to begin all over again, as though I had never taken orders, submit to a thorough test, examine the evidence impartially. It is the only way. Of this much I am sure, that the Church as a whole has been engaged in a senseless conflict with science and progressive thought, that she has insisted upon the acceptance of facts which are in violation of reason and which have nothing to do with religion. She has taught them to me--made them, in fact, a part of me. I have clung to them as long as I can, and in throwing them over I don"t know where I shall land."
His voice was measured, his words chosen, yet they expressed a withering indignation and contempt which were plainly the culmination of months of bewilderment--now replaced by a clear-cut determination.
"I do not blame any individual," he continued, "but the system by which clergymen are educated.
"I intend to stay here, now, without conducting any services, and find out for myself what the conditions are here in Dalton Street. You know those people, Mr. Bentley, you understand them, and I am going to ask you to help me. You have evidently solved the problem."
Mr. Bentley rose. And he laid a hand, which was not quite steady, on the rector"s shoulder.
"Believe me, sir," he replied, "I appreciate something of what such a course must mean to you--a clergyman." He paused, and a look came upon his face, a look that might scarce have been called a smile--Hodder remembered it as a glow--reminiscent of many things. In it a life was summed ups in it understanding, beneficence, charity, sympathy, were all expressed, yet seemingly blended into one. "I do not know what my testimony may be worth to you, my friend, but I give it freely. I sometimes think I have been peculiarly fortunate. But I have lived a great many years, and the older I get and the more I see of human nature the firmer has grown my conviction of its essential n.o.bility and goodness."
Hodder marvelled, and was silent.
"You will come here, often,--every day if you can. There are many men and women, friends of mine, whom I should like you to know, who would like to know you."
"I will, and thank you," Hodder answered. Words were inadequate for the occasion....
CHAPTER XII. THE WOMAN OF THE SONG
On leaving Mr. Bentley, Hodder went slowly down Dalton Street, wondering that mere contact with another human being should have given him the resolution to turn his face once again toward the house whither he was bound. And this man had given him something more. It might hardly have been called faith; a new courage to fare forth across the Unknown--that was it; hope, faint but revived.