sel to the one man in town who, he felt, would understand him-old Dr. Ambrose, who was of that passing type of "family physician" to whom one instinctively turns for counsel, although the matter may lie outside medicine or health. He went to the old doctor's home one evening.

"Well, well, my boy, what 's up now?" queried the old doctor as Gordon entered the room. "Been burning the midnight oil and not playing fair with stomach and nerves?"

"No, not that," Gordon replied. "I was never more fit in my life, but I'm up against something that involves my whole future. It's about my church." The old doctor had been watching young Gordon's career with sympathetic interest and suspected what was coming, for he knew the town and the atmosphere in which Gordon had to work. But, from long experience, he knew that the first thing to do with a troubled mind is to lead it to unburden itself of its story.

"Have n't begun to doubt the gospel, have you, my boy?" he angled.

"Far from that, Doctor," Gordon replied quickly, "but some of the men of my church and some of my fellowministers think I haven't been preaching it."

"And what is it that you 've been saying now that they object to?"

"Oh, they don't seem to object to what I 've been saying. It's what I have n't been saying that worries them," explained Gordon. "They say I've left Christianity out of my preaching. They say that what I 've been preaching is all right in its way, but that it is n't Christianity. They want more 'doctrinal' sermons."

"Come to think of it, it's a fact; you have n't preached a 'doctrinal' sermon

since you 've been here," said the old doctor. "Why don't you give us a series on "The Modern Point of View in Theology,' or something like that? You 'd help a lot of us to straighten out our thinking. There's a lot of rubbish in the attic that a fresh, clear mind like yours could help us clear out."

"Because," Gordon answered decisively, "that is n't my idea of the preacher's job. It is n't bad theology that 's hurting the world and hamstringing the church most; it 's too much theology. The doctrine-makers have disfigured Christianity almost beyond recognition. They 've put into the mouths of us preachers a vocabulary that has little more relation to the original Christianity of the Carpenter than the Greek alphabet has to the Chinese language. Sooner or later we preachers will have to scrap that vocabulary." We can go on trying to pour new meanings into the old phrases, but there's a limit to that sort of thing. Stripping ancient dogmas of their superstition may be a wonderful intellectual sport, but there's a bigger thing to be done. What good does it do to 'modernize' a lot of doctrines that are themselves perversions of Christianity? What we need is n't a reconstruction of theology, but a rediscovery of Christianity."

"But, my boy," argued the old doctor, "that can't be done without a frank handling of these doctrines that you say have disfigured Christianity. You can't lay the foundations for a new building, you know, until you 've wrecked the old and removed the debris."

"You 're right, of course," Gordon said thoughtfully, "but that can't be done from the pulpit. Let the scholars

do that. The people are so wedded to the old catch-words that the preacher who attacks them simply stirs up an antagonism and distrust that prevent his exerting any positive influence. The only thing we preachers can do, if we want to restore original Christianity, is to ignore this mass of theology and allow all that is unreal to die of its own unreality. But, I must admit, such tactics have failed in my case."

"Well, Gordon, my boy," finally counseled the old doctor, "you 're ahead of your time in a community like this. What you 'll have to do is to get out of this sort of community and out of the denomination you 're in and go to one of these independent liberal churches in a larger city."

Young Gordon had not thought of this possibility. Maybe here was a way out. But some months later, when he had the opportunity to go to an independent liberal church which conducted its services in a down-town theater of a certain large city, he saw the matter differently. I talked with him when he was considering the offer.

"I am afraid," he said, "that this is n't the happy solution it looks. A few months, a year maybe, in this liberal church, and I'd have this fight all over again. It would only postpone the difficulty."

"Would n't it be different in a liberal church?" I asked.

"No," he said, "I don't think it would be in the long run. This city crowd is liberal, but in one direction only. They've revolted against the impossible dark doctrines about the hereafter, but they 're still thinking of Christianity in terms of a set of doctrines to be believed. They would n't want me to preach infant damnation or anything like that; they 're past the

idea of God as a vindictive baby-killer. But we have to do a lot of fresh thinking not only about Christianity and the hereafter, but about Christianity and the here and now as well. Christianity has something to say to society as well as to the individual man. That's where the shoe pinches. It's Christianity's message to society that's been side-tracked for so long. And that's the message that will most quickly get a man into trouble with his board of trustees."

"Is n't it a challenge to your personality, tact, diplomacy, technic?" I asked.

"A smooth, diplomatic manner," he countered, "will often succeed in putting over ideas if the ideas conflict with men's beliefs only, but when your ideas conflict with men's interests, it 's a different story. I am about convinced that it is impossible for a man to preach the original Christianity of the Carpenter in all its naked challenge to modern society and long remain the popular and enthusiastically supported head of any organization. I don't believe that the Carpenter himself would last six months as pastor of this liberal church to which I 've been invited. Not that he 'd preach the old theology they 've left behind. He would n't. He did n't. But they would regard him as a dangerous agitator."

The upshot of the affair was that Gordon entered a secular profession.

"Why did you leave the ministry?" somebody asked him several years later.

"I did n't," Gordon replied. "I left the pulpit and entered the ministry.”

Was it cowardice or clarity of insight that dictated his decision? Opinion will differ widely. I leave the story to the reader, without comment.