“My dear man, do not think too harshly of yourself. You have simply tried to do a beautiful and an impossible thing. Disaster was inevitable. You thought, as did the beloved of Isaiah, that you had planted your vineyard ‘with the choicest vine.’ And you ‘looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.’ It could not have done otherwise.”
“Pardon me, Bishop, but that is what I do not yet understand. Why should such an unhallowed harvest, unbelief, scandal, riot, murder, suicide, follow on the preaching of the simple gospel of Christ?”
“Ah, but it was not the simple gospel of Christ that you preached. Christ never concerned Himself with economic problems, nor with the reorganization of human society. There are some, I know, who affect to admire and reverence Him, who hold, with great show of learning, that His message was primarily to the Galilean peasants, and so to all whose necks were bowed under the Roman yoke, and so to all the world, that men should rise and scatter their oppressors, and establish an earthly kingdom of justice and righteousness. These do but pervert His teaching, and degrade His gospel. His message was wholly to the soul of the individual man that he should turn spiritually from darkness to light. And having so turned, it would necessarily follow that man’s material environment would undergo a similar beneficent change.”
“But why should not the Church, in order to do her perfect work on earth, face the whole life of man, physical, industrial and social, as well as spiritual?”
“Because it is not her province to transform the environment of men. Jesus Christ sought only to transform the man. He was satisfied to have the man deal thereafter with his own environment. Social reform is possible only through spiritual renewal. To have a new society we must first have new men. When the regeneration of the individual has been accomplished, society itself will, perforce, be regenerated, and a social organization that will do justice to all men will spring automatically into existence. I tried to make this clear to you that night at the Tracy house.”
“I know. I have been too impatient to await the spiritual regeneration. My heart has gone out to the poor and churchless of my own day who are suffering for material and spiritual bread.”
“Your heart does you credit. No servant of Christ should ignore or neglect the poor. They were very close to Him in His lifetime. They should be special objects of our care in this day. But the mission of the Church is not alone to the poor; the message of Christ was to all men. You have permitted your passionate sympathy for the poor and the oppressed to run away with your judgment, to destroy your sense of proportion, to—there, Farrar, forgive me! I did not mean to scold or condemn you; it is too late for that. All I want to do to-day is to help you if I may.”
“Nor did I come, Bishop, to argue my case anew, nor to plead justification for my conduct, nor to make excuses for my failures. I came to tell you that my service at Christ Church is at an end. The vestry holds my letter of resignation. It remained only for me to make acknowledgment to you as my Reverend Father in God, of your kindness, and patience, and fatherly solicitude, and to beg your forgiveness, if I may, for all that I have said or done that has caused you trouble or sorrow, or that has cast discredit on the Church of your love and care.”
“You have my forgiveness without the asking, Farrar. It is true that I have deeply deplored the situation in your parish, but I have had no resentment toward you, because, while I have believed you to be mistaken, I have known you to be utterly conscientious, and loyal.”
“That is true, Bishop.”