"Perhaps," Gordon said, with a twinkle in his eye, "if you mean
our famous fathers who 'landed first on their knees and then on
the aborigines.'"

Van Meter ignored the remark.

"You said one day that in America we had but two classes, the masses
and the asses. That sentence cost the church a thousand dollars in
pew-rents. I think such assertions blasphemous."

"Well, it's true."

"I don't think so; and if it were, it don't pay to say such things."

"Am I only to preach the truths that pay?"

"We hired you to preach the simple gospel of Christ."

"Pardon me, Deacon; I am not your hired man. I chose this church
as the instrument through which I could best give my message to
the world. I answer to God, not to you. The salary you pay me is
not the wage of a hireling. My support comes from the free offerings
laid on God's altar."

"We call them pew-rents. You are trying to abolish this system,
as old as our life, and allow a mob of strangers to push and crowd
our old members out of their pews."

"I believe the system of renting pews un-Christian and immoral-a
mark of social caste."