The Bishop, noting the sudden hysterical flabbiness of the whole face, recalled the man to firm thought.
“The mission is permanently closed, then? That seems to me sad news for Christmas morning.”
“Believe me, Bishop, I understand your feeling about it. I, too, regret the closing of the mission. I’ve positively enjoyed my work down there.”
“I should think that you might have found the mission work almost restful after the other sort.”
“It was restful. Strangely! They speak out down there, act out, too. The Southside caused me no night-long guessing, like my neighbors here. Yet I had no time for the mission, and lately no money either, for the work has become unpopular, quite naturally.”
“Naturally?”
“I mean the factories and the foreigners have obscured the native population for whom the mission was organized. Social conditions were different a few years ago. It was perfectly possible then for prominent members of St. John’s to work at the mission and yet preserve all the decencies of class distinction. The church would hardly expect a man of my Senior Warden’s type to organize clubs and classes for his own factory hands!”
“Yet might not Christianity expect it?”
“In these days, Bishop, I fear, Christianity and the church are two totally different propositions!”
“You have not lost your power of frankness, Newbold!”