“You’ll not find any money which is not tainted,” snapped Joseph G. Clark, who regarded money in a strictly impersonal light. “The very dollar you have in your pocket may have come direct from a brothel.”
“Or from Vedder Court,” retorted the rector. “We have brothels there, though we do not ‘officially’ know it. We have saloons there; we have gambling rooms there; and, from all these iniquities, Market Square Church reaps a profit! For the glory of God? I dare you, Joseph G. Clark, or W. T. Chisholm, to answer me that question in the affirmative! In Vedder Court there are tenements walled and partitioned with contagion, poison, with miasmatic air, reeking with disease; and from the poor who flock into this fetid shelter, because we offer them cheap rents, Market Square Church takes a profit as great as any distillery combine! For the glory of God? Out of very shame we can not answer that question! We have bought and sold with the greed of any conscienceless individual, and our commodity has been filth and degradation, human lives and stunted souls! No decent man would conduct the business we do, for the reason that it would soil his soul as a gentleman; and it is a shameful thing that a gentleman should have finer ethics than a Christian church! In the beginning, I was a coward about this matter! It was because I wished to be rid of our responsibility in Vedder Court that I first urged the conversion of that property into a cathedral. We can not rid ourselves of the responsibility of Vedder Court! If it were possible for a church to be sent to hell, Market Square Church would be eternally damned if it took this added guilt upon it!”
“This talk is absurd,” declared Chisholm. “The city has taken Vedder Court away from us.”
“Only the property,” quickly corrected Rufus Manning, turning to Chisholm with sharpness in his deep blue eyes. “If you will remember, I told you this same thing before Doctor Boyd came to us. I have waited ever since his arrival for him to develop to this point, and I wish to announce myself as solidly supporting his views.”
“Your own will not bear inspection!” charged Clark, turning to Manning with a scowl.
“I’ll range up at the judgment seat with you!” flamed Manning. “We’re both old enough to think about that!”