--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.

"Carefully!" he cried. "I've told you not to drive so fast in this part
of town. I've never got used to automobiles," he remarked to Hodder,
"and I formerly went to church in the street-cars, but the distances
have grown so great--and I have occasionally been annoyed in them."

Hodder was not given to trite acquiescence. His homely composure belied
the alertness of his faculties; he was striving to adapt himself to the
sudden broadening and quickening of the stream of his life, and he felt a