"Do you really mean that, Mr. Hughes?" he asked.
"I am very much in earnest," was the reply. "And I believe I express the feeling of a majority of the members of the vestry. How is it, gentlemen? Am I right?"
He looked around on the men in the room, and all save two of them nodded their heads or spoke in approval. The rector noted their attitude, but neither in his voice nor manner did he display surprise, disappointment or resentment.
"Then let me tell you," he said quietly, "that any backward movement on my part is entirely out of the question. I feel that I am preaching Christ's gospel, and that His message is to the poor as well as to the rich. To-day, so far as material things are concerned, the poor are poor because they are not receiving their just share of the wealth which they produce. Some day all this will be changed. There will be economic justice, and with economic justice will come social equality. There will be no rich, no poor, no aristocracy, no proletariat. I shall welcome that day. But, so far as things spiritual are concerned, that day dawned when Jesus Christ was born. In His religion there is no room for distinction between the classes. The Church which He founded, and its house of worship, should be open, freely and always, without distinction of any kind, to 'all sorts and conditions of men.'"
"Good!" exclaimed Emberly.
The rector paid no heed to the interruption, but went on:
"And so long as I am rector of Christ Church I shall endeavor to break down, and to keep down within it, all distinctions between rich and poor, and between class and class. That is why I have been urging you gentlemen of wealth to blot out social differences in the House of God. I want the humblest parishioner to feel that he has an equal right with any of us to the use and
