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C——s» —>i (®y Winston
The Waring Problems'
THE scene of this story is in one
of the largest cities of the
United States of America, and
of that portion called the
Middle West. A city once con
servative and provincial, and
rather proud of these qualities;
. but now outgrown them, and
tnked by lightning limited trains to other
teeming centers of the modern world: a city
overtaken, in recent years, by the plague
that has swept our country from the At
lantic to the Pacific—Prosperity. Before
its advent, the Goodriches and Gores, the
Warings, the Prestons, and the Atterburys
lived leisurely liven in a sleepy quarter of
shade trees and spacious yards and muddy
macadam streets, now passed away forever.
Existence was decorous, marriage an irre
vocable step, wives were wives, and the
Authorized Version of the Bible was true
from cover to cover.
Among the many church bells that rang
on those bygone Sundays wds that of St.
, John's, of which Dr. Gilman, of belo\ ed
memory, was rector. Dr. Gilman was a
saint, and if you had had the good luck to ba
baptized or confirmed or married or buried
A by him. you were probably fortunate, in an
1 earthly as well as heavenly sense. One has
Jto be careful not to deal exclusively in
/ superlatives, and yet it is not an exaggera
tion to say that St. John's was the most
beautiful and churchly edifice in the City,
thanks chiefly to several gentlemen of sense,
and one gentleman, at least, of taste —Mr-
Horace Bentley..
Little did the Goodriches and Gores, the
Warings and Prestons and Atterburys and
other prominent people forsee the havoc that
prosperity and smoke were to play with
their residential plans! One by one, sooty
commerce drove them oqt. westward, con
servative though they were, from the para
dise they had created; blacker and blacker
grew the gothic facade of St. John’s. And
before you could draw your orcath. the cable
ears had become electric. Gray hairs began
to appear in the heads of trie people of Dr.
Gilman had married in the '6o’s, and their
children were going East to college.
Asa Waring looked with <. stern distaste
upon certain aspects of modern life. And
though he possessed the means to follow his
friends and erstwhile neighbors into the
r»ewer paradise five miles westward, he had
successfully resisted for several years a
formidable campaign to uproot him. His
three married daughters lived in that clean
and verdant district surrounding the Park
(spelled with a capital), while Evelyn and
Rex spent most of their time in the West
End or at the Country Chins. Even Mrs.
Waring, who resembled a Roman matron,
with her wavy white hair parted in the
middle and her gentle yet classic features,
sighed secretly at times at the unyielding
attitude of her husband, although admiring
him for it. The grandchildren drew her.
On the occasion of Sunday dinner, when
they surrounded her. her heart was filled to
overflowing.
Sometimes a visitor was admitted to this
sacramental feast, the dearest old gentle
man in tjip world, with a great, high
bridged nose, a slight stoop, a kindling
look, and snow white hair, though the tep
of his head was bald He sat on Mrs.
Waring's right, and was treated with !h°
greatest, deference by the elders, and with
none at all by the children, who besieged
him. The bigger ones knew that he had
what is called a history; that he had
been rich once, wfth a great mansion of
his own, bur now | ie lived on Dalton Street,
almost in the slums, and worked among
the poor. His name was Mr. Bentley.
He was not there on the particular Sun
day when this story opens, otherwise the
conversation about to be recorded would
not, have taken place For St. John’s
t hurch was not often mentioned in Mr
Bentley's presence.
"Well, grandmother." said Phil Good
rich. who was the favorite son-in-law. "how
was the new rector to-day?”
"Mr. Hodder is a remarkable young man,
Phil,” Mrs Waring declared, "and de
livered such a pood sermon I couldn't
help wishing that you and Rex and Evelyn
and George had been in church ”
"Phil couldn't go,” explained the unmar
ried and sunburned Evelyn, "he had a
match on of eighteen holes with me."
Mrs. Waring sighed.
"1 can't think what's got into the younger
people these days that they seem so in
different to religion. Yrtur father's a ves
tryman. Phil, and 1 believe it has always
been his hope that you would succeed him.
I’m afraid Rex won’t succeed hii father,"
she added with a touch of regret and a
glance of pride at her husband "You
never go to church, Rex Phil does."
”1 got enough church at boarding school
to last me a lifetime, mother," her son re
plied. He was slightly older than Evelyn,
ami just out of college. "Besides, any
heathen can get on the vestry—it's a finan
cial board, and they're due to put Phil on
some day. They're always putting him on
boards"
His mother looked a little distressed.
"Rex. 1 wish you wouldn't talk that way
about the Church"
"I'm sorry, mother," he said, with quick
penitence. "Mr. Langmaid’s a vestryman,
you know, and they’ve only got him there
because he’s the best corporation lawyer
in the city. He isn't exactly what you’d
call orthodox He never goes '
"We are indebted Io Mr Langmaid so"
Mr Hodder.” Ibis was one of Mr War
ing’s rare remarks.
Eleanor Goodrich smiled.
"I like him I think he's sincere And
that first Sunday he came, when I saw him
get up in the pulpit and wave that long arm
of his, all 1 could think of was a modern
Savonarola He looks like one. And then,
when he began to preach, it was madden
ing 1 felt all the time that he could say
something helpful jf he only would But he
didn’t It was all about the sufficiencv of
grace—whatever that may be He dfdn t
explain it He didn't give me one notion
as tn how to cope a little better with the
frightful complexities of the modern lives
we live, or how to Stop quarreling will*
Phil when he stays at the office and is late
for dinner”
"There's Eldon Parr,” suggested George
Bridges, mentioning the name of the city’s
famous financier; "I'm told he relieved Mr.
Bentley of his property some twenty-five
years ago. If Mr. Hodder should begin to
preach the modern heresy which you desire,
Mt. Parr might object. He's very orthodox,
J'm told.”
"And Mr- Parr,” remarked the modern
Evelyn sententiously, "pays the bills at St.
John's Doesn't he, father?”
”1 fear he pays a large proportion of
them,” admitted Mr. Waring, in a serious
tone.
‘ In these days,” said Evelyn, "the man
who pays the bills is entitled to have his
religion as he likes it.”
"No matter how he got the money to pay
them,” added Phil.
■'That suggests another little hitch in
the modern church which will have to be
straightened out.” said George Bridges.
“ 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees.
h- ;:ocrites! For ye make clean the outside
of the cup and of the platter, but within
they are full of extortion and excess.’
Mr. Langmaid'# Mission.
FOR forty years Dr. Gilman had
been the rector of St. John's.
One Sunday morning he
preached his not unfamiliar
sermon on the text, "For now
we see through a glass darkly;
but then face to face,” and
when the next Sunday dawned
he was in his grave in Winterbourne Ceme
tery, sincerely mourned within the parish
and without. In the nature of mortal things
his death was to be expected; no less real
was the crisis to be faced. At the vestry
meeting that followed, the problem was
tersely set forth by Eldon Parr, his frock
coat tightly buttoned about his chest, his
glasses in his hand.
"Gentlemen.” he said, "we have to fulfill a
grave responsibility to the parish, to the city,
and to God. The matter of choosing a rector
to-day. when clergymen are meddling with
all sorts of affairs which do not concern
them, is not so simple as it was twenty
years ago We have at St. John s always
been orthodox and dignified, and I take it. to
be the sense of this vestry that we remain
so- 1 conceive it our duty to find a man who
is neither too old nor too young, who vil!
preach the faith as we received it, who is
not sensational, and who does not mistake
Socialism for Christianity.”
By force of habit, undoubtedly, Mr. Parr
glanced at Nelson Langmaid as he sat down,
innumerable had been the meetings of finan
cial boards at which Mr. Parr had glanced
at Langmaid, who had never failed to re
spond.
His reputation for judgment —which by
some is deemed the highest of human quali
fies — was unimpaired; and a man who in his
time had selected presidents of banks and
trust companies could certainly be trusted to
choose a preacher—particularly if the, re
quirements were not of a spiritual nature.
A week later he boarded an east
bound limited train, armed with plenary
powers.
His destination was the hill town whore
he had spent the first fifteen years of nis
life. He was met at the station by his sis
ter. a large, matronly woman, who invari
ably set the world whizzing backward for
Langmaid, so completely did she typify the
contentment, the point of view of an age
gone by. For life presented no more com
plicated problems to the middle-aged Mrs.
Whitely than it had to Alice Langmaid.
"I know what you’ve come for, Nelson.”
she said reproachfully, when she greeted
him at the station. "Dr. Gilman’s dead, and
you want our Mr. Hodder. 1 feel it in tny
bones. Well, you can’t get him. He had
ever so many calls, but he won’t leave
Bremerton.”
She knew perfectly well, however, that
Nelson would get him. although her brother
characteristica'ly did not at once acknowl
edge his missicn
"Gerald,” asked Nelson Langmaid of his
brother-in-law last night, after his sister and
the girls had gone to bed, are you sure that
this young man’s orthodox?"
“He's been here for over ten years, ever
since he left the seminary, and he’s never
done or said anything radical yet,” replied
the mill owner of Bremerton.
“How has he built up the church?” Lang
maid demanded.
"Well ’ said Gerald Whltety. "1 think the
service appeals We've made it as beautiful
as possible. And then Mr. Hodder goes to
see these people and sits up with them, and
they tell him their troubles He’s reformed
one or two rather bad cases. I suppose It's
the man's personality ”
' Ah," Langmaid exc'aimed, "now you're
talking! “
"I can't see what you’re driving at." con
fessed his brother-in-law. “You're too deep
lor me. Nelsm.”
If the truth be told. Langmaid himself did
not quite see On behalf of the vestry he
offered next day to Mr. Hodder the rector
ship '’f St. John's, and that offer was taken
under consideration; but there was in the
lawyer’s mind no doubt of the acceptance,
which, in the course of a fortnight after he
had returned to the West, followed.
THE high, oozing note of the
brakes, and the heavy train
came .to a stop Hodder
looked out of the window of
the sleeper to read the sign
Marcion against the yellow
brick of the station set down
in the prairie mud. and
flanged by a long row of dun-colored freight
cars backed up to a factory
Leaning back on the cushioned seat, as
the train started again, he reviewed the
Author of “Richard Carv§ ”
Illustrated by Jame 1
years at Bremerton, his first and only par
ish.
His success, modest though it were, had
been too simple He had loved the peapie,
and they him, and the pang of homesickness
he now experienced was the intensest sor
row he had known since he had been among
them. Yes. Bremerton had been for him
(he realized now that he had left it) as near
an approach to Arcadia as this life permits,
-and the very mountains by which it was
encircled had seemed effectively to shut out
those monster problems which had set the
modern world outside to seething.
He, John Hodder, had held fast to the
essential efficacy of the w-ord of God as pro
pounded in past ages by the Fathers And.
to it he attributed the flourishing condition
in which he had left the Church of the As
cension at' Bremerton.
Hodder looked at his watch, only tv be re
minded poignantly of the chief cause of his
heaviness of spirit, for it represented con
cretely the affections of those whom he had
left behind; brought before him vividly the
purple haze of the Bremerton valley, and
the garden party, in the ample Whitely
grounds, which was their tribute to him.
And he behe’d. moving from the sunlight to
shadow, the figure of Rachel Ogden She
might have been with him now, speeding by
his side into the larger life!
In his loneliness, he seemed to be gazing
into reproachful eyes. Nothing had passed
between them, li was ■he who had held
back, a fact, that in the retrospect caused
him some amazement. For, if wifehood
were to be regarded as a profession, Rachel
Ogden had every qualification. And Mrs.
Whitely’s skilful suggestions had on occa
sions almos. brought him to believe in the
reality of the mirage—never quite.
This he did know—for he had long ago
torn from his demon the draperies of dis
guise—that women were his great tempia
tion. Ordination had not. destroyed it,
and even during those peaceful years at
Bremerton he had been forced to maintain
a watchful guard. He had a power over
women, and they over Imu, that threatened
to lead him constantly into wayside paths,
and often he wandered what those who
listened to him from the pulpit would think
if they guessed that, at times, he struggled
with the, suggestion even now. Yet, with
his hatred of compromises, he had scorned
marriage.
Popularity had followed him from the
small New England college tv the Harvard
Law School. He had been sobered there,
marked as a pleader, and at last the day ar
rived when he was summoned by a great
New York lawyer to discuss his future. Sun
day intervened. Obeying a wayward im
pluse he had gone to one of the metropoli
tan churches to hear a preacher renowned
for his influence over men. There is, in
deed, much that is stirring to the imagina
tion in the spectacle of a mass of human
beings thronging into a great church, pour
ing up the aisles, crowding the galleries,
joining with full voices in the hymns. What
drew them? He himself was singing words
familiar since childhood, and suddenly they
were fraught with a startling meaning!
me. radiuney divine,
Scatter all. my unbelief!"
Visions of the Crusades rose before him, of
a frair arousing France, of a Maid of Or
.eans; of masses of soiled, war-worn, sin
worn humanity groping towards the light.
Even after all these ages, the belief, the
hope would not down
Then came the sermon, “I will rise and
go to my father.”
After the service, far into the afternoon,
he had walked the wet streets heedless of his
direction, in an exaltation that he had felt
before, but never with such intensity. It
seemed as though he had always wished to
preach, and marveled that the perception
had not come to him sooner.
Still under the spell, he reached his room
and wrote to the lawyer thanking him,
but saying that he had reconsidered coming
to New York.
NELSON LANGMAID’S extra
ordinary judgment appeared
once more to be vindicated.
The new rector was plain
ly not a man who might be
accused of policy in pan
dering 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 pre-eminently safe —a re
gion the soil of which was traditional To
wit: St. Paul had left to the world a con
sistent theology. Historical research was
gnored rather than condemned. There
were, no doubt, many obscure passages in
the Scripture, but men’s minds were finite.
It was entirely fitting, no doubt, when
the felicitations of certain of the older par
ishioners on his initial sermon were over,
that Mr Hodder should be carried westward
10 lunch with the first layman of the dio
( ese. But Mr. Parr, as became a person
of his responsibility, had been more mod
erate in his comment. For he had seen, in
his day. many men whose promise had been
unfulfilled. Tight!' buttoned, silk batten,
upright, he sat in the corner of the limou-
Sin*, tin tasseien t-peakingtube in Ins
hand, from time io time cautioning his
chauffeur.
The neighborhood they traversed was
characteristic of our rapidly expanding
American cities There were rows of dwell
ing houses, once ultra-respectable, now
slatternly, and lawns gone gray; some of
these houses hud been remodeled into
third-rate shops, or thrown together t> make j
manufacturing establishments; salons oc
cupied all the favorable corners. ,
Hodde r read the sign on a lanp post,
Dalton street. The name clung in hs taem
ory.
"We thought, some twenty years ago. of
moving the church westward,” aid Mr.
Parr, "but finally agreed to remai. where
we w'ere."
The rector had a conviction on tKs point,/
and did not hesitate to state it without
waiting to be enlightened as to thevanker’s
views.
“It would seem to me a wise tecision,”
he said, looking out of the winow, and
wholly absorbed in the contemplatin of the
evidences of misery and vice, “rith tills
poverty at the very doors of thechurch.”
Something in his voice impend Eldon
Parr to shoot a glance at his profle.
‘ Poverty is inevitable, Mr. Hoder," he»
declared. "The weak always sinl”
They alighted under a porte conere with
a glass roof.
‘ I’m sorry,” said Mr. Parr, as he doors
swung open and he led the way into the
house, "I'm sorry 1 can't give ya a more
cheerful welcome, but my son anddaughter,
for their own reasons, see fit tolive else
where.”
Hodder's quick ear detected it the tone
another cadence, and he glance at E'.don
Parr with a new interest. . .
Presently they stood, face to Pre. acres/
a table reduced to its smallest Apportions,
in the tempered light of a vast djing-room,
an apartment that seemed to syibolize the
fortress-like properties of wealth- The odd
thought struck the clergyman tha tlfis man
had made his own Tower of Lcdon, had
hurt with his own hands the irison in
which he was to end his day? Mr. P;,rr
bowed his head while Hodder aspd grace.
They sat down.
Suddenly, the financier launches forth on
a series of shrewd and searchingquestions
about Bremertcn, its church, its sople. its
industries, and social conditions Al! ot
which Hodder answered to his apparent
satisfaction.
"1 have had a letter from yer former
bishop speaking of you in tht highest!
terms." Mr. Parr observed.
"The bishop is very kind."
Mr. Parr cleared his throat.
' 1 am considerably older thariyou,” ho
went on, and I. have the futile of St
John’s very much at heart, Mr. tedder I ;
trust you will remember this am make al
lowances for it as I talk to yo. I need
not remind you that you have ggrave re
sponsibility on your shoulders so so young
a man. and that St. John's is.he oldest
parish in the diocese.”
"I think I realize it, Mr. arr,” st':4
Hodder, gravely. "It was onlythe oppor
tunity of a larger work here tht induced
me to leave Bremerton.”
"I take it for granted." Eldor Parr con
tinued, "that you and I and al sensible
men are happily agreed that te Church
should remain where she is. Lt. the peo
ple come to her. She should b, if I may
so express it, the sheet anchordf society,
our bulwark against Socialism, n spite of,
Socialists who call themselves rinisters of
God. The Church has lost grand—why?
Because she has given ground. The sanc
tity of private property is beinj menaced, .
demagogues are crying out fronrhe house
tops and inciting people agains the men
who have made this country wha it is. who -
have risked their fortunes and thir careers
for the present prosperity. W have no
longer any right, it seems, to enilov whopt
we will in our factories and outTailroads.
we are not allowed to regulateour rates,
although the risks were all ours Even the
women are meddling—they arenot satis
fied to stay tn the homes, wher- they be
long. You agree with me?”
"As to the women," said therector 'I
must confess that I have never std anv’ex
perience with the militant typeof which
you speak.
' I pray God you may never iave ” e\
n ai Mr Parr ’ with more filing thai'
he had yet. shown. 8
, Ves " the rector replied thougtfullv "I
"now that the problems here wil he more
f'njpHcated, more modern- mor. chfn”-
And I thoroughly agree with vou hat the i
tiankv 1?
anlty If , q lfl not believe—ir snlte cc
rhe evident fact which you point ut of th-.
Church s lost ground-that her f tu ,e w
be greater than her past I
a clergyman.” ’ ’ 1 Sho, S l not
"Come." said the financier at i s t “I'm
stire you like pictures, and Languid te Is
Would o 'co ' a fan, ' y for editions.
Mould you care to go to the galhr?" '
Hy all means," the rector asserted
1 heir footsteps, as they crossed be'bar,l
-wood floors, echoed in the empt ho'.i-c.
Aftei pausing to contemplate a fillet »n
the stair landing, they came at la- to .'n<3 1
mmt e ; S l'iaht g f a !! ery ' Wh * re the sor ' t ’"' a ‘ lp ‘
quale lignt fell upon many mask-pieces,'
anc ent and modern. And it wa het'.'/
while gazing at the Corots and Bohcurs,
h i ' u rtT Romnejs ' Copleys, and Raises
that Hodders sense of their owner’ is o’a.
tion grew almost overpowering. Once
dancing over his at Mr p*- r ha
of lr i'ain ed hiß eyes an ex Pression Im. t/
"These pictures must give you -r <t
pleasure," he said.
Oh.” replied the banker.-in a qeer
voice. "I’m always glad when any nm ..e
--preciaies them. I never come in o
alone.”
Hodder <iid not replv. They passed a. i/
to an upstairs sitting-room, which m ,
Hodder thought, be directly over the din ;.-
room Between its window’s was a c y
containing priceless curios.
Mv wife i.ked this room," Mr. Parr x.
plained, as be opened the case. When th ’
nad inspected it, the rcetor stood for a n-
