CHAPTER IV


ENDS QUITE ROMANTICALLY

Eli Moggridge was a judge of men, and he liked Theophilus Londonderry at
a glance. Theophilus Londonderry was also a judge of men, and he liked
Eli Moggridge. In fact, two men that needed each other had met.

You couldn't help laughing a little at Mr. Moggridge at first, soon you
couldn't help respecting him,--Theophilus Londonderry was almost to know
what it was to love him. Indeed, that Mr. Moggridge was just the man he
was was a matter of no small importance to the young minister. A chief
deacon is nothing less than a fate, and it is in his power to be no
little of a tyrant. Had Mr. Moggridge's interest in New Zion been of a
different character, he would inevitably have been as great a hindrance
as he was to prove a help. Fortunately that interest was recreative
rather than severely religious. It was to be for him a sort of
Sunday-business to which he was to devote his vast spare energies. He
wanted to see it a "going concern," and, hating stagnation in his
neighbourhood, he looked about for a specialist whom he could trust to
make it move and hum and whizz.

Luckily, in so far as he was an amateur theologian, he was broad, with
further mental allowances for expansion. What was wanted at New Zion, he
explained to the young minister at supper after the close of an evening
service which had more than kept the promise of the morning, was not