His father seemed to hesitate a moment, looking timidly around upon the strangers. Then he slowly sank on his knees beside the chair, one hand resting on Dorothy's golden curls; and in a moment the Presence seemed about us. It was a wonderful prayer, and came as if out-breathed beneath the very shadow of the Cross.

Our guests took their leave in silence. After the children were tucked away I waited long up-stairs for Gordon; but I fell asleep at last, the sound of earnest voices still floating upward from the study. I knew it was a collision of the old school and the new—and I prayed on the father's side.

XXI
"LOVE'S OLD SWEET SONG"

There could be but one end to this. Whether Gordon was right or wrong, he was not at one with the standards of his church. I really believe, although I shrink from saying it, that his idea of saving men came more and more to be confused with the process of simply helping them. This sprang partly, of course, from his nobility of nature, from his large and loving heart—but it was wrong. Gordon, I think, believed in relieving men, then reforming them, both of which were to spell regeneration. And then, besides, he seemed to have adopted some theory about law, and the laws of nature—he knew more about evolution than any other man since Darwin—that had turned the once sweet luxury of prayer, real prayer, into nothing more than a sort of religious exercise. I don't believe he thought prayers that actually asked for things were of any use at all.

I suppose, too, although I never could find out much about this, that Gordon didn't just regard the Scriptures in the same way his brother ministers did; yet I knew he reverenced the Bible and simply lived among its teachings.

But there could, as I have said, be only one end to all of this—so far, I mean, as Gordon's relation to St. Andrew's was concerned. I felt from the beginning that it would be but a matter of time till he must forsake the pulpit he loved so well. There were two influences that contributed powerfully to this: the one was Gordon's honour—the other, Gordon's father. My husband had a fastidious conscience—and a faithful sire.

Grandfather had been with us long—I cannot say exactly how long—before matters actually came to a crisis. But I think he felt from the beginning, with the keen instinct of his kind, that Gordon's official ministry was at an end. One night, sitting in an adjoining room, I overheard the most of a long conversation between the father and the son. The burden of it did not greatly surprise me; grandfather had given me his mind on the matter before, or implied it anyhow, and more than once. But I knew that night that the crisis was at hand.

"Ye canna' dae onythin' else," the old man repeated once or twice; "when a minister gi'es up the fundamentals, it's no' richt for him to keep his kirk. A preacher wi'oot a gospel!—he's a sair objec'," the Scotch voice concluded pitifully.

I could catch the tone of almost bitter remonstrance in Gordon's answer. "Without a gospel, father!" he cried reproachfully; "surely you don't accuse me of that—surely you're going too far."