



Produced by David Widger





THE INSIDE OF THE CUP

By Winston Churchill


Volume 7.

XXIII.  THE CHOICE
XXIV.   THE VESTRY MEETS
XXV.    "RISE, CROWNED WITH LIGHT!"
XXVI.   THE CURRENT OF LIFE



CHAPTER XXIII

THE CHOICE


I

Pondering over Alison's note, he suddenly recalled and verified some
phrases which had struck him that summer on reading Harnack's celebrated
History of Dogma, and around these he framed his reply. "To act as if
faith in eternal life and in the living Christ was the simplest thing in
the world, or a dogma to which one has to submit, is irreligious...
It is Christian to pray that God would give the Spirit to make us strong
to overcome the feelings and the doubts of nature... Where this
faith, obtained in this way, exists, it has always been supported by the
conviction that the Man lives who brought life and immortality to light.
To hold fast this faith is the goal of life, for only what we consciously
strive for is in this matter our own. What we think we possess is very
soon lost."

"The feelings and the doubts of nature!" The Divine Discontent, the
striving against the doubt that every honest soul experiences and admits.
Thus the contrast between her and these others who accepted and went
their several ways was brought home to him.

He longed to talk to her, but his days were full. Yet the very thought
of her helped to bear him up as his trials, his problems accumulated; nor
would he at any time have exchanged them for the former false peace which
had been bought (he perceived more and more clearly) at the price of
compromise.

The worst of these trials, perhaps, was a conspicuous article in a
newspaper containing a garbled account of his sermon and of the sensation
it had produced amongst his fashionable parishioners. He had refused to
see the reporter, but he had been made out a hero, a socialistic champion
of the poor. The black headlines were nauseating; and beside them, in
juxtaposition, were pen portraits of himself and of Eldon Parr. There
were rumours that the banker had left the church until the recalcitrant
rector should be driven out of it; the usual long list of Mr. Parr's
benefactions was included, and certain veiled paragraphs concerning his
financial operations. Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Plimpton, Mr. Constable, did not
escape,--although they, too, had refused to be interviewed....

The article brought to the parish house a bevy of reporters who had to be
fought off, and another batch of letters, many of them from ministers, in
approval or condemnation.

His fellow-clergymen called, some to express sympathy and encouragement,
more of them to voice in person indignant and horrified protests. Dr.
Annesley of Calvary--a counterpart of whose rubicund face might have
been found in the Council of Trent or in mediaeval fish-markets
--pronounced his anathemas with his hands folded comfortably over his
stomach, but eventually threw to the winds every vestige of his
ecclesiastical dignity....

Then there came a note from the old bishop, who was traveling. A kindly
note, withal, if non-committal,--to the effect that he had received
certain communications, but that his physician would not permit him to
return for another ten days or so. He would then be glad to see Mr.
Holder and talk with him.

What would the bishop do? Holder's relations with him had been more than
friendly, but whether the bishop's views were sufficiently liberal to
support him in the extreme stand he had taken he could not surmise. For
it meant that the bishop, too, must enter into a conflict with the first
layman of his diocese, of whose hospitality he had so often partaken,
whose contributions had been on so lordly a scale. The bishop was in his
seventieth year, and had hitherto successfully fought any attempt to
supply him with an assistant,--coadjutor or suffragan.

At such times the fear grew upon Hodder that he might be recommended for
trial, forced to abandon his fight to free the Church from the fetters
that bound her: that the implacable hostility of his enemies would rob
him of his opportunity.

Thus ties were broken, many hard things were said and brought to his
ears. There were vacancies in the classes and guilds, absences that
pained him, silences that wrung him....

Of all the conversations he held, that with Mrs. Constable was perhaps
the most illuminating and distressing. As on that other occasion, when
he had gone to her, this visit was under the seal of confession, unknown
to her husband. And Hodder had been taken aback, on seeing her enter his
office, by the very tragedy in her face--the tragedy he had momentarily
beheld once before. He drew up a chair for her, and when she had sat
down she gazed at him some moments without speaking.

"I had to come," she said; "there are some things I feel I must ask you.
For I have been very miserable since I heard you on Sunday."

He nodded gently.

"I knew that you would change your views--become broader, greater. You
may remember that I predicted it."

"Yes," he said.

"I thought you would grow more liberal, less bigoted, if you will allow
me to say so. But I didn't anticipate--" she hesitated, and looked up at
him again.

"That I would take the extreme position I have taken," he assisted her.

"Oh, Mr. Hodder," she cried impulsively, "was it necessary to go so far?
and all at once. I am here not only because I am miserable, but I am
concerned on your account. You hurt me very much that day you came to
me, but you made me your friend. And I wonder if