knew. Reporters were not allowed to be present, and
the union leaders did not care to talk, especially as they
yielded their contention, and ordered the various branches
of the union to return to work.
Lawrence was in Mr. Marshall s counting-room, not
long after, and the mill-owner asked him a few questions
about the matter. " I don t wish to pry into any secrets,"
he began good-naturedly, yet as always, truthfully, " but
from what I hear, you knew more about the ending of
that strike than most of us did."
" Oh, there is no secret about it," responded Lawrence,
freely. " I talked the matter over, with some of the
leaders, and they saw that their best interests lay in
resuming work."
" Whether it was for their interest or not," remarked
Mr. Marshall, " it was certainly greatly for the interest
of Leon Carsten and Company. You knew, of course,
just how bad a fix Carsten was in ? "
"Yes, indeed," replied Lawrence. "All that side of
it was fully understood by the labor unions. They
were partly led by the fact of his extensive building
operations to choose the time they did."
THE PRICE OF BLOOD 305
"Well, it meant a great many thousands of dollars
to Carsten," remarked Mr. Marshall. " His shops are well
along toward completion now, and he will be ready to
meet the contracts which he made with those St. Louis
firms. He was anxious about it, I could see ; although
he is a man who affects indifference, and always seems
to have unlimited resources. On the whole I am glad
that the matter resulted so satisfactorily. I can t help
wondering, though, how you dared to give those fellows
such advice as I am told you gave. My experience has
been that they are headstrong, and not very open to
instruction of any sort."
" It is one of the compensations of my peculiar posi
tion," said Lawrence, with satisfaction, "that I can talk
freely to any and all classes. I belong to no class, in
dustrially, and these men know it. I am especially glad
of this settling of the strike, because it helps maintain
my cherished theory about the true powers of the re
ligious teacher of our day, and the proper scope of
church influence."
" Whatever your theory," remarked Mr. Marshall, in
a friendly tone, " I can safely assert beforehand that it
will not be one that I have heard from the present
preacher at Emmanuel Church. He never deals with
theories, not he ; he deals in facts, or rather in stories
about facts, although I am bound to say to his credit
that he has been preaching less sensationally and more
sensibly of late. We are all coming to think that Mrs.
Guthrie is at the bottom of it."
Lawrence nodded, in a sympathetic way. He had
arrived at the same conclusion. But he had wished
for some time to speak of this unfolding theory of his
about churches, and now was come a good opportunity.
" I state my view in this way," said he. " I believe
that the Christian churches are falling into decay and
306 RONALD CARNAQUAY
extinction, because they are wedded to the old views of
Christianity, which were negative, in ideas and prac
tices ; and the demand of this age is for something
positive, in human activity, industrial, scientific, or
moral. Take the ideal of Jesus which has been held
up by the Christian church during eighteen centuries.
It was established by the application of the ancient
Messianic Prophecies, so called, to the person of Jesus ;
and it emphasizes the patience and humility of the
Master, at the expense of the more positive and initia
tive powers which he unquestionably possessed. The
church has accepted the simile of the patient sheep,
dumb before her shearers, and has thought of him
solely as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
The artists of the Christian church have unconsciously
accepted this partial view of the Master, and have still
further fixed the negative ideal of his character, by
their pictures of scourging and crucifixion."
As Lawrence paused, Mr. Marshall took up his idea
with acuteness. " That way of putting it explains to
me what I felt when I saw the Passion Play of Ober-
Ammergau. You know we all went over, four years
ago. I felt, as I saw that wonderful drama, that the
character of Christus was disappointing ; but I didn t
know just why I felt so. I see now that the Passion
Play portrayed only one-half of the character of Jesus."
. " Yes, that is what the name signifies. Passion means
endurance of ills, sufferings ; and what the public sees
portrayed at Ober-Ammergau is what the world has
seen in the Christ Ideal, these many centuries ; namely,
the negative, patient, suffering Jesus. Now the records
of the great prophet s life are all too meagre, but they
give ample indications of a very active, positive, even
dominating spirit. The attitude of Jesus toward the
money-changers in the temple, and toward the hard-
THE PRICE OF BLOOD 307
ened Pharisees, was threatening and denunciatory ; and
his entire mission was earnest, though sympathetic,
aggressive, though loving."
" I am not sure," suggested Mr. Marshall, tentatively,
" but doesn t Tolstoi , the Russian writer, take different
ground on the matter? "
"Yes, he does," assented Lawrence, promptly. "He
has a theory of non-resistance, which he thinks he
deduces from the life and teachings of Jesus ; but I
believe he has failed to grasp the deeper meaning of
that profound life in Palestine. I believe that Jesus
taught and practised a kind of holy retaliation the
return of love for hate; the response of kindness to
injury. To remain passive, submissive, under insult and
injury, is only going halfway toward the goal which
Jesus pointed out. We must go far beyond that, as
Jesus himself did, and return on him who steals from
us, or in any way harms us, pity and love. That is
positive Christianity, and is far harder and higher to
attain, than submission, and avoidance of positive sin-
fulness."
Mr. Marshall shook his head doubtingly, yet with a
smile. "I m afraid," said he, "that such doctrines are
too soft and pulpy for practical life to-day. I think we
shall need jails and prisons a good while yet."
" So do I think so," argued Lawrence, with warmth.
" I do not urge their demolition, nor do I urge the ban
ishing of restraints and penalties for sin and crime. I
urge, simply, that love and tenderness must be behind
such reformatory systems, or they fall short of Christ s
injunctions. A human parent is often obliged to cor
rect his child, and even to cause him pain of some kind ;
but he does all in love and hope. However," he con
tinued more quietly, " that was not the exact phase of
this theory of a positive Christianity which I started to
308 RONALD CARNAQUAY
unfold. I am concerned about the obvious decay and
decrepitude of the churches ; and I believe, as I have
said, that this has come about because the churches
unconsciously uphold and practise, as organizations, the
negative virtues of Christianity. The world never showed
as much altruistic zeal as to-day, but that zeal and energy
is developed and applied, I regret to say, largely outside
the organized religious bodies. The churches urge les
sons of patience and endurance, and avoidance of sin ;
but they must swing around into the larger orbit, and
urge an aggressive warfare against sin and disease and
misery, in all their hideous forms."
" This is all somewhat novel to me, I must admit," re
marked the mill-owner. " I never thought of these mat
ters in this way before, yet what you say, Mr. Freeman,
has an air of good sense about it."
" I do believe in it," continued Lawrence, speaking
rapidly and earnestly. " Ministers and church members
are principally occupied so far as sin is concerned
with keeping away from it ; whereas they ought to keep
as close to it, in every form, as they can close to it,
attacking and exterminating it. What is worse, there
is a very general nervousness and morbid sensitiveness
in the churches, about being misunderstood, and being
talked about, and being written up in the newspapers.
To avoid publicity and to shun being railed at by the
press that is a controlling, enslaving principle of
church members, and is a formidable barrier to the
true mission of the church to-day. Why, I would like
to see the whole basis of sentiment and action so
changed, that the churches would carry on newspapers
which should be scrupulously exact and truthful in all
departments, and theatres and lecture-courses also.
These might be made powerful factors for education
in at least morals, and even, with care and delicacy, in
THE PRICE OF BLOOD 309
things spiritual. Note also the reform committees and
investigation boards in our cities ! What better ground
for these and similar enterprises to spring out of than
the churches ! And men, not women, in the churches,
should lead in doing these things. I hope "
At this moment Freeman was interrupted by a
man who came into the counting-room. " Oh, it s Mr.
Carsten," exclaimed Mr. Marshall, rising. " I have a
little business with him. Don t go, Mr. Freeman. I ll
introduce you, and then I will take him into the inner
office. We ll be out in a few moments. I want you to
meet him," and he added in a still lower tone, "and
then you may tell me what you think of him."
Freeman was introduced, and looked the newcomer
over with much interest. Carsten, for his part, bent
his piercing black eyes upon the clergyman, with that
penetrating and even insolent stare with which he was
accustomed to meet and dominate new people. The
man was well known to Freeman, by reputation, both
on the industrial and the social side. The labor-union
leaders had given no very flattering picture of him, in
his business dealings, and socially the man occupied a
peculiar position in the community. He was a man of
medium height, with broad shoulders and well-poised
head, which, when he was seated, led one to expect a
tall, well-modelled figure ; but, standing, he was seen to
be rather short in the legs, and therefore always seemed
disproportioned. He was black haired, swarthy in com
plexion, with aquiline nose, and piercing black eyes set
closely together. Mentally he was quick, decisive, re
sourceful, and clever in epigrammatic sayings and in
stinging repartee. He was self-reliant and lawless,
socially, and took delight in defying the customs
and conventions of society. Everybody feared his
sharp tongue and dreaded his wit and ridicule. He
3 io RONALD CARNAQUAY
had led a free life, even to the extent of profligacy ;
and there were many stories afloat in society regarding
his libertine youth. Now that he was beyond middle
life, he lived more quietly ; but his house, where he
entertained frequently, had been often the scene of
over-indulgence, and he was said to find amusement
in urging young people to excess in drinking, and in
language which had brought shame to them afterwards
and horror to the hearts of their parents. He was a
member of a church which privately disapproved him,
but publicly accepted his allegiance and his consider
able gifts and his shrewd counsel. He was a man
after the type of the Greek profligate, Alcibiades, who
insulted and maltreated his inferiors on the streets,
and healed their wounded feelings by a largess of gold.
Carsten delighted in defying public opinion, and then
bribing it with unexpected gifts of a fountain, or books
to the library, or a stained window for a church.
All this was well known to Freeman, and he had
long felt that the brilliant, dissolute man was a baneful
influence in the community. He had been influenced
in advising the labor leaders to resume work, not at all
by any friendliness for Carsten ; on the contrary, his
sympathy was very slight toward the factory-owner ;
but the best interests of the working-men, in the long
run, had seemed to the clergyman to suggest temporary
concessions. Whether or not Carsten knew the part he
had played in bringing about the close of the strike,
Freeman was not sure. Certainly there was no sign of
it in the factory-owner s cold, piercing glance, as the
two shook hands.
Lawrence seated himself in his chair again, as Mr-
Marshall led his visitor into the inner office ; and he
now took up the daily newspaper. Engaged in this
reading, a quarter of an hour passed ; and the inner
THE PRICE OF BLOOD 311
office door opened and the two manufacturers came
out. A few final words were exchanged between them,
and Carsten started to go out upon the street. He
took hold of the door-knob, paused, and returned to the
desk near Lawrence. The clergyman s back was
turned, and he did not see what Carsten was doing.
" Mr. Freeman," spoke the factory-owner, in his crisp
and almost contemptuous way; and Lawrence arose
and turned toward him.
" There s a check for your gospel-mill, if you want,
it," continued Carsten. " Tisn t much, only a hundred
dollars, but perhaps you can use it to advantage. Dis
tribute Bibles, or buy catechisms, or some such damned
nonsense as that, I suppose ! Anyhow, the money s
yours." And he proceeded to put back his check
book into his pocket.
There was the same insulting tone of contempt, in
his voice, with which he usually accompanied his be
stowal of gifts. He was a handsome man, and the cut
of his mustache and imperial gave his cold smile, at
these moments, a cynical flavor which was Mephisto-
phelian. He stood waiting, a moment, for some re
sponse from the clergyman. Mr. Marshall also stood
near, and something in Lawrence s face made the mill-
owner drum nervously on the edge of the desk. The
clerk, across the office, lifted furtive glances of interest
over the edge of the ponderous ledger.
Lawrence s face grew very rigid, his legs stiffened,
and he gazed straight into the cynical face before him.
The scene was a trying one for him. He needed the
money, not for such purposes as Carsten had insolently
suggested, but to put in benches and other fittings, for
a class in manual training. There lay the check, on
the desk, where the manufacturer had dropped it, not
even deigning to hand it to the clergyman. It lay
3 i2 RONALD CARNAQUAY
there so it seemed to Lawrence like a bone
thrown to a dog ; and the hand that had drawn it, was
the hand that had enticed young souls to perdition and
had laughed at their fall ; the name on the bit of paper
was a name feared (but abhorred in secret) by all re
spectable people in the community.
Carsten was a very keen man ; and he thought he
knew perfectly well what the struggle was, that held
the clergyman in his valley of indecision. He thought
he knew it, and he was amused at it, had seen similar
situations before, and had always seen one outcome
the half-ashamed, apologetic acceptance of the gift.
This kind of outcome was what he always relished, as
if he were looking on at a stage drama. He stood there,
silently waiting for the clergyman to reach his decision,
confident that the decision would be capitulation. His
smile deepened in sardonic intensity. He waited.
" Mr. Carsten," began Freeman. He spoke very
slowly. He wished to say exactly the right words.
He paused, because he was instinctively about to ex
press formal thanks for the offer ; but he omitted that
clause. " Mr. Carsten, I do not wish to take your
check. I am sorry that you have offered it. I I
because your offer puts me under the painful necessity
of declining it."
His slight hesitation in speech was misconstrued by
Carsten, but Mr. Marshall knew him better, and foresaw
an unpleasant scene. "There, there!" responded the
factory-owner, with a deprecatory gesture, and with a
mocking smile playing about the corners of his mouth,
" pocket the dirty stuff ! It s filthy lucre, I know, but
we fellows have to hustle like the devil to get it."
As he spoke, he began moving toward the door. He
considered the gift accepted, and cared not to waste
more time. Suddenly and sharply rang out the words,
THE PRICE OF BLOOD 313
" Mr. Carsten ! " It was Freeman s voice, clear, inci
sive. " I shall not take your check. If you leave it, it
still remains yours. Mr. Marshall will doubtless see that
it is returned to you." With this unmistakable declina
tion, Freeman quietly sat down in the chair, and took up
his paper with all the indifference he could assume.
Carsten s face underwent a transformation. This was
an outcome of the scene which he had not anticipated.
Mr. Marshall did not like to look directly at him, for
he was a man who loved peace and kindliness, and
had a horror of strife. The clerk, however, from over
the edge of the ledger, could see Carsten s under lip
get between his white, wolf-like teeth, and his long,
sinewy, be-ringed fingers clench together tightly. But
his voice was steady, as he came across to Lawrence,
and, gazing down at him, asked, " And why do you de
cline my money, may I ask? "
Lawrence returned his look with one no less self-
contained ; then he rose from his chair, for there was a
lurking threat in the man s eyes that boded ill. The
two faced each other, a yard or two apart. Lawrence,
now that the situation was avowedly a battle, all fencing
being laid aside, felt the substratum of his nature stirred,
and knew again the joy, the stern joy, of defying in
iquity and condemning a vicious life. " Mr. Carsten,"
he replied, with courtesy but with firmness and entire
self-reliance, " I do not wish for your money ; that is
enough for me to say."
The swarthy face before him worked nervously. Car
sten was not used to this kind of situation. His pride
was piqued and his will defied. " See here ! " he ex
claimed, " I ask you a plain question. I want a plain
answer. Why do you refuse my money ? Isn t it good
money ? "
The wilful profligate knew well the ground of the
3M RONALD CARNAQUAY
minister s refusal. But he was a bold spirit, and dared
attack almost any stronghold. Many a time his over
bearing manner and his threatening eyes had made an
adversary retreat, even after offering temporary resist
ance. But this time his opponent had an amount of
iron in his blood, that precluded any such outcome.
The line of Freeman s dark, dense eyebrows seemed
to straighten and stiffen, and the scar on the side
of his square forehead became livid. " Mr. Carsten,.
I say again that I do not wish for your money.
And since you demand my reason for my attitude, I will
give it. I wish no assistance, in my work of lifting men
and women out of sin and degradation, from a man who
has done so much to lead men and women down into
those conditions."
Certainly the words were plain enough. There was
no mistaking the clergyman s meaning, and the factory-
owner caught his breath, despite all his self-possession,
under the lash ; for he had not listened to such plain
speech, for years. His experience was all the other
way. Nobody had dared, for the last twenty years of
his prosperous, dictatorial career, to speak such words
to him. The clerk, over the edge of the ledger, saw his
shoulders heave, and knew that at any moment a blow
might be delivered. Carsten stood a moment, his head
slightly inclined forward, his eyes blazing with wrath,
his face a vortex of malignant fury. Then he shook
himself, like a dog coming out of the water, and hissed,
"You damned psalm-singing "
" Mr. Marshall," interrupted Freeman, in a strong,
resonant tone that had plenty of suggestive vibration
in it, " Mr. Marshall," and he kept his deep-set eyes
fastened on the two scintillatory eyeballs in front of
him, " I do not wish to be the cause of any disgraceful
scene in your office. I shall be obliged to bid you good
THE PRICE OF BLOOD 315
morning." And he moved slowly backward and away,
still keeping his gaze on the furious face in front of
him, as a lion-tamer holds the gaze of a savage beast,
when about to leave the cage.
Carsten s eyes followed the clergyman, in every move
ment he made, and not until the outer door closed,
did he seem to come to himself. Then his rigidity
of poise slackened gradually, he mechanically ran his
fingers over his mustache and imperial, then smoothed
his hair, and acted like a man recovering from a dis
orderly encounter with fists. Indeed, he could hardly
have sworn that he had not actually come to blows with
his hated antagonist. In his will, in his heart, there
had been overwhelming hate, and the desire to crush.
His mental disorder could have been no greater, if
blows had actually been reached. He saw that he
had been defied and really put to defeat ; and the clerk
heard him mutter a stream of profanity, which seemed
to scorch the air that was touched by it.
Mr. Marshall was himself in a highly agitated frame of
mind ; but his natural resource, in all times of pressure,
was silence and self-repression. Accordingly he ven
tured no soothing remark, but quietly stepped behind
his desk and began sorting some papers which lay there.
The clerk across the room gave no sign of life, except
when he turned a ledger leaf, and this act he performed
as if he were on picket-duty, under the enemy s sharp-
shooting fire.
Presently Carsten walked toward the door, stopped,
walked back to the desk, whereon lay his unaccepted
check, took the unoffending piece of paper, as if it had
been a venomous insect or reptile, and tore it into
minute shreds. Then he walked rapidly, and with his
usual bold stride, across to the outer door, and, without
a word to anybody, went out.
CHAPTER XX
BARRIERS BURNED AWAY
"If any man s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he
himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." I Corinthians iii. 15.
RONALD CARNAQUAY was conscious, now, that his affec
tions were seriously twined about Adeline Guthrie. He
had thought about her by that name for some time.
He had not dared to call her " Adeline," openly, but he
thrilled when he heard any of her old and intimate
friends speak of her in that familiar way. He even
resented its use by some ; and he chafed inwardly, be
cause they could speak of her lightly, often in so inti
mate a fashion, and he still be compelled to continue
calling her, respectfully and distantly, " Mrs. Guthrie."
His congregation also knew, in a general way, that he
was undergoing some deep, mental experience, but only
a few had any inkling of its exact nature. There were
various signs of this new condition of things, in the
clergyman s life. In the first place, as we have already
seen, the cleverer portion of the parish noticed a marked
change in the material of which his sermons were made
up. There was, as Mr. Marshall expressed it, " more
substance " in them, and a wider range of reference to
the best authors. In addition to this change, there was
another in his style of delivery ; he was more repressed
and moderate in his ways of expression ; and many
people felt, rather than consciously noted, that there
was less self-assurance in the man. He was less assertive
and confident; in truth, he had lost, in a measure, the
316
BARRIERS BURNED AWAY 317
poise of good nature and self-confidence, which had
made him attractive in the pulpit. For although such
poise may be pushed so far as to become offensive in a
speaker, he must always possess a considerable amount
of it, in order to make his listeners lean upon him and
his words, with confidence.
This change was a positive loss of power to him, and
of pleasure to many in his congregation, but in another
way there was a gain. He was more personal in his
preaching, seemed to take more thought of people and
circumstances where hilarity and jollity were not the
end and aim of life ; also in his prayers there crept in
more and more a spirit of longing and heart-hunger,
which made them voice more intimately the words of
serious and earnest people in the congregation.
Thus, in various ways, to the really acute observer,
Ronald Carnaquay was distinctly a different person
from what he had been when he came to Emmanuel
Church. As to his own recognition of his altered state
of mind, he was fairly conscious of it. He had sought
Mrs. Guthrie s companionship, sedulously, had been
lifted and educated by it, and knew now that she was
dearer to him than all else in the world. Of course
there was only one way out of it all. He must win her
love, and with that end consciously in mind, he con
sulted her wishes in every possible way, paid her many
little attentions, and hoped that she was not wholly un
responsive. If he had felt sure that she would listen to
him favorably, he would have offered himself to her, at
the first opportunity ; but once or twice when he had
been alone with her, and their conversation had drifted
into favorable situations for such an avowal, the sensi