Back The Inside of the Cup
Chapters (40)
  1. THE INSIDE OF THE CUP
  2. *
  3. Contents
  4. VOLUME 1
  5. Chapter I - The Waring Problems
  6. Chapter II - Mr. Langmaid's Mission
  7. Chapter III - The Primrose Path
  8. Chapter IV - Some Riddles of the Twentieth Century
  9. VOLUME 2
  10. Chapter V - The Rector Has More Food for Thought
  11. Chapter VI - "Watchman, What of the Night?"
  12. Chapter VII - The Kingdoms of the World
  13. Chapter VIII - The Line of Least Resistance
  14. VOLUME 3
  15. Chapter IX - The Divine Discontent
  16. Chapter X - The Messenger in the Church
  17. Chapter XI - The Lost Parishioner
  18. Chapter XII - The Woman of the Song
  19. VOLUME 4
  20. Chapter XIII - Winterbourne
  21. Chapter XIV - A Saturday Afternoon
  22. Chapter XV - The Crucible
  23. Chapter XVI - Amid the Encircling Gloom
  24. VOLUME 5
  25. Chapter XVII - Reconstruction
  26. Chapter XVIII - The Riddle of Causation
  27. Chapter XIX - Mr. Goodrich Becomes a Partisan
  28. VOLUME 6
  29. Chapter XX - The Arraignment
  30. Chapter XXI - Alison Goes to Church
  31. Chapter XXII - "Which Say to the Seers, See Not"
  32. VOLUME 7
  33. Chapter XXIII - The Choice
  34. Chapter XXIV - The Vestry Meets
  35. Chapter XXV - "Rise, Crowned with Light!"
  36. Chapter XXVI - The Current of Life
  37. VOLUME 8
  38. Chapter XXVII - Retribution
  39. Chapter XXVIII - Light
  40. Afterword

"I must be frank with you. It was the discovery that Mr. Parr and others of my chief parishioners were so far from being Christians as to indulge, while they supported the Church of Christ, in operations like that of the Consolidated Tractions Company, wronging their fellow-men and condemning them to misery and hate. And that you, as a lawyer, used your talents to make that operation possible."

"Hold on!" cried Langmaid, now plainly agitated. "You have no right—you can know nothing of that affair. You do not understand business."

"I'm afraid," replied the rector, sadly, "that I understand one side of it only too well."

"The Church has no right to meddle outside of her sphere, to dictate to politics and business."

"Her sphere," said Holder, "—is the world. If she does not change the world by sending out Christians into it, she would better close her doors."

"Well, I don't intend to quarrel with you, Holder. I suppose it can't be helped that we look at these things differently, and I don't intend to enter into a defence of business. It would take too long, and it wouldn't help any." He got to his feet. "Whatever happens, it won't interfere with our personal friendship, even if you think me a highwayman and I think you a—"

"A fanatic," Holder supplied. He had risen, too, and stood, with a smile on his face, gazing at the lawyer with an odd scrutiny.

"An idealist, I was going to say," Langmaid answered, returning the smile, "I'll admit that we need them in the world. It's only when one of them gets in the gear-box...."

The rector laughed. And thus they stood, facing each other.

"Langmaid," Holder asked, "don't you ever get tired and disgusted with the Juggernaut car?"

The big lawyer continued to smile, but a sheepish, almost boyish expression came over his face. He had not credited the clergyman with so much astuteness.

"Business, nowadays, is—business, Holder. The Juggernaut car claims us all. It has become-if you will permit me to continue to put my similes into slang—the modern band wagon. And we lawyers have to get on it, or fall by the wayside."

Holder stared into the fire.