ness with them. They have no religious motive in coming."
"But how else are you going to get them at all under the influence of the Church? Here I've been doing guild work for years. I've distributed I don't know how many bushels of food and loads of outgrown garments to the poor; and how many people do you suppose I've been able to bring into the Church by doing it? Just four. I counted them up yesterday. I tell you, Phil, these people will not be bribed into accepting religion. What they want, as Mr. Farrar explained, is recognition, not charity. When they get that we'll get them into the Church. The Church needs new life, and Mr. Farrar has chosen the only way to supply it."
"I'm afraid he's putting into it more discord than life. I can't believe that the pulpit is the place from which to propound doctrines of social and political economy. And there are many in Christ Church that are not only like-minded with me, but who resent the rector's attitude far more than I do."
"That's because you're all of you behind the times. Because you're over conservative, just as mother is; just as all these people are who have more than enough for themselves, and can't begin to appreciate the desires and struggles and needs of the poor."
Westgate's patience was ebbing. He felt that the girl was taking an entirely unreasonable attitude.
"Ruth," he said, "you are losing your head over this thing. You are being carried away by your sympathies and by this man's plausible appeal. You don't detect the fallacies in his position. You are not exercising your judgment."
"Oh," she replied, "I know my own mind, and I've thought it all out, and I've read, and I've investigated on my own account, and I've come to the conclusion that if all these dreadful social ills, and this degrading and unremitting toil, and this hopeless poverty are ever to be done away with, the Church must be the leader
