Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/112

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THE NEW ARCADIA.

patrons; the preferment-seeking, brother-grudging, heresy-hunting proclivities of a prevalent type of Churchmanship, he "could not away with." Lack of sympathy in his brethren drove him back upon himself and his ideals. Upon One especially. There was a Life that had been, had given impulse to his. He would live it again. He would get back to the childhood of Christianity, drink of its fountain-springs, and fired by its enthusiasm for humanity, its broad brotherhood, its spirit of unselfishness and simplicity, he would seek in his own sphere to live the life rather than prate the parrot-cry.

He was young, and he was wrong. Beneath all the unattractive, repellent exterior of much modern Church life and charitable endeavour, their lies avast substratum of renewing, regenerating influence. With the impetuosity of youth he stayed not to probe beneath the surface. The men who led the multitude, who talked of manhood's rights and human wrongs, who brought forth each their special panacea for relief of the social disorder they magnified—legislator, socialist, philosophical-radical—all seemed to lack earnestness and sincerity. What did they care? Whom did they love? In what did they believe? For himself he would seek a new scene where perchance facility might be afforded for working out his ideal.

The venture of his friend the doctor offered this opportunity. Wedding himself once more to the Church, vowing before the altar abstinence for others' sake, perpetual celibacy that his heart might be single, Frank relinquished his portion of prominence and promise, and cast in his lot with the villagers of the vale.

A "prophet's chamber" at the White House was offered, with provision for a stipend that should not leave him a loser.

None of this he would have. His lot should be with