The cold logic of his reply left room for no further argument. The appeal to reason having been dismissed, an appeal to sentiment was now the minister’s only recourse.
“Mr. Malleson,” he said, “there is one thing more which I beg you to consider. These workmen of yours are beaten. You have forced them into the last ditch. Their wives are starving and their babies are dying. They are ready to yield every point. Unless you give them work the weak and the helpless among them will perish like beasts. You are a Christian man. I appeal to you in the name of the merciful Christ to have mercy on them.”
The president of the company looked at his visitor for a full minute before replying. Then he said:
“You also are a Christian man, Mr. Farrar. And you are a minister of the gospel besides. And, as a minister, you have preached discord and discontent. You have stirred up envy and hatred in the breasts of these working people. You have roused the spirit and the passions which have led to this destitution and misery. You have sown the wind; your victims are reaping the whirlwind. It comes with poor grace from you to appeal to my sense of Christian mercy.”
The rector did not resent the accusation, and he made little attempt to justify himself. He simply said:
“I have preached the gospel of Jesus Christ as I have understood it. But let us assume that I have been wrong. Let us even assume that my preaching may have been in part responsible for this disaster. The emergency is too great for any of us to pause long enough to lay the blame at another’s door. We are confronted by suffering unspeakable. With one word you can relieve it. With one turn of the hand you can lift a whole community from the slough of wretchedness and despair to the very heights of happiness, and that without yielding one iota of your lawful right or personal dignity. Again I ask you, as a Christian man, to exert your power on the side of mercy.”
“And again I tell you that, being a Christian man, I shall not throw this sop to the forces of evil. I can do no greater service to this community than to exert my power to crush this spirit of revolt which you and those like you have fostered here. I intend to stamp out, so far as I can, those pernicious doctrines of socialism, of radicalism, of syndicalism by the preaching of which you and your companions and followers have brought to the people of this city hardship and suffering which you now find yourselves powerless to relieve.”
“We are powerless to relieve it, Mr. Malleson. That is frankly why I come to you. And I come as man to man, with a man’s message on my lips.”
“As man to man!” The phrase seemed to have caught the president’s attention. His face flushed as if in anger. “As man to man,” he repeated. “What have I in common with you who find your companions among atheists and radicals? Why should I take counsel with you who have taken delight in warping the weak mind of a member of my family into complete acceptance of your destructive doctrines? You have made him easy prey of designing women, and a tool of sinister men. You have alienated him from his family and his friends. I say why should I listen for one moment to you?”
He half rose in his chair, struck his clenched fist on the table, and glared at his visitor in unmistakable anger.