“Coming along, Doctor,” invited Manning, going for his coat and hat.

“No, I think not,” decided the Reverend Smith Boyd quietly.

He was sitting at the end of the table facing the Good Shepherd, at the edge of whose robe still sparkled crystalline light, and in his two hands he thoughtfully held the Book of Common Prayer.

CHAPTER XXXVI
HAND IN HAND

The Reverend Smith Boyd walked slowly out into the dim church, with the little volume in his hand. The afternoon sun had sunk so low that the illumination from the stained-glass windows was cut off by the near buildings, and the patches of ruby and of sapphire, of emerald and of topaz, glowed now near the tops of the slender columns, or mellowed the dusky spaces up amid the arches.

It was hushed and silent there, deserted, and far from the thoughts of men. The young rector walked slowly up the aisle to a pew in the corner near the main entrance, and sat down, still with the little Book of Common Prayer in his hand, and, in the book, the Articles of Religion. From them alone must he preach; nothing more and nothing less. That was the duty for which he was hired. His own mind, his own intelligence, the reason and the spirit and the soul which God had given him were for no other use than the clever support of the things which were printed here. And who had formulated these articles? Men; men like himself. They had made their interpretation in solemn conclave, and had defined the Deity, and the form in which he must be addressed, as one instructs a servant in the proper words to use in announcing the arrival of a guest or the readiness of a dinner. The interpretation made, these men had arrogantly closed the book, and had said, in effect, this is the way of salvation, and none other can avail. Unless a man believes what is here set down, he can in nowise enter the Kingdom of Heaven; and a pure life filled with good works is for naught.

The Reverend Smith Boyd had no need to read those Articles of Religion. He had been over them countless times, and he knew them by heart, from beginning to end. He had opened wide the credulity of his mind, and had forced his belief into these channels, so that he might preach the gospel, not of Christ, but of his church, with a clean conscience. And he had done so. Whatever doubts there had lurked in him, from that one period of infidelity in his youth, he had shut off behind a solid wall over which he would not peer. There were many things behind that wall which it were better for him not to see, he had told himself, lest, from among them, some false doctrine may creep up and poison the purity of his faith. He had thrown himself solidly on faith. Belief implicit and unfaltering was necessary to the support of the dogmatic theology he taught, and he gave it that belief; implicit and unfaltering. Reason had no part in religion or in theology; and for good cause!

But here had come a condition where reason, like a long suppressed passion of the body, clamoured insistently to be heard, and would have its voice, and strode in, and took loud possession. Joseph G. Clark, so filled with iniquity that he could not see his own sins, so rotted, to the depths of his soul, that he could twist every violation of moral law into a virtue, so sunken in the foulness of every possible onslaught upon mercy and justice and humanity that millions suffered from his deeds, this man could sit in the vestry of Market Square Church, and control the destinies of an organisation built ostensibly for the purpose of saving souls and spreading the gospel of mercy and justice and humanity, could sit in the seat of the holy, because, with his lips he could say: “I acknowledge Christ as my Redeemer”! Rufus Manning, whose life was an open page, whose record was one upon which there was no blot, who had lived purely, and humanely, and mercifully and compassionately, who had given freely of his time and of his goods for the benefit of those who were weak and helpless and needy, who had read deeply into human hearts, and had comforted them because he was gifted with a portion of that divine compassion which sent an only begotten Son to die upon the cross, that through his blood the sins of man might be washed away, this man could be driven from the vestry of Market Square Church, itself guilty and stained with sin, because he could not, or would not say with his lips, “I acknowledge Christ as my Redeemer”!

Reason made a terrific onslaught against faith at this juncture. Familiar as he was with the book, the Reverend Smith Boyd turned to the Articles of Religion.

“We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deserving....