Dear old Dr. Gilman had been milder—­much milder as the years gained upon him.  And latterly, when he had preached, his voice had sounded like the unavailing protest of one left far behind, who called out faintly with unheeded warnings.  They had loved him:  but the modern world was a busy world, and Dr. Gilman did not understand it.  This man was different.  Here was what the Church taught, he said, and they might slight it at their peril!

It is one thing to believe one’s self orthodox, and quite another to have that orthodoxy so definitely defined as to be compelled, whether or no, to look it squarely in the face and own or disown it.  Some indeed, like Gordon Atterbury, stood the test; responded to the clarion call for which they had been longing.  But little Everett Constable, who also sat on the vestry, was a trifle uncomfortable in being reminded that absence from the Communion Table was perilous, although he would have been the last to deny the efficacy of the Sacrament.

The new rector was plainly not a man who might be accused of policy in pandering to the tastes of a wealthy and conservative flock.  But if, in the series of sermons which lasted from his advent until well after Christmas, he had deliberately consulted their prejudices, he could not have done better.  It is true that he went beyond the majority of them, but into a region which they regarded as preeminently safe,—­a region the soil of which was traditional.  To wit:  St. Paul had left to the world a consistent theology.  Historical research was ignored rather than condemned.  And it might reasonably have been gathered from these discourses that the main proofs of Christ’s divinity lay in his Virgin Birth, his miracles, and in the fact that his body had risen from the grave, had been seen by many, and even touched.  Hence unbelief had no excuse.  By divine commission there were bishops, priests, and deacons in the new hierarchy, and it was through the Apostolic Succession that he, their rector, derived his sacerdotal powers.  There were, no doubt, many obscure passages in the Scripture, but men’s minds were finite; a catholic acceptance was imperative, and the evils of the present day —­a sufficiently sweeping statement—­were wholly due to deplorable lapses from such acceptance.  The Apostolic teaching must be preserved, since it transcended all modern wanderings after truth.  Hell, though not definitely defined in terms of flames, was no less a state of torture (future, by implication) of which fire was but a faint symbol.  And he gave them clearly to understand that an unbaptized person ran no inconsiderable risk.  He did not declare unqualifiedly that the Church alone had the power to save, but such was the inference.

II

It was entirely fitting, no doubt, when the felicitations of certain of the older parishioners on his initial sermon were over, that Mr. Hodder should be carried westward to lunch with the first layman of the diocese.  But Mr. Parr, as became a person of his responsibility, had been more moderate in his comment.  For he had seen, in his day, many men whose promise had been unfulfilled.  Tightly buttoned, silk hatted, upright, he sat in the corner of his limousine, the tasselled speaking-tube in his hand, from time to time cautioning his chauffeur.