After the service, moved by an impulse which he did not stop to analyse, he made his way to the platform, introduced himself to the speaker, and asked permission to call upon him at his hotel. It was an act very foreign, he realised, to what he had always thought his natural reserve. But the spirit which impelled him was as strong as it was novel. Perhaps, he reflected, it was only necessity. He needed aid. Something told him that Dr. Weis could give it. The next afternoon he presented himself before the former rabbi, and without hesitation told him everything of the quandary in which he found himself, omitting nothing of the circumstances which had brought it about. Weis, a compact little man, with snapping black eyes and a combative mouth, listened attentively, never taking his half-smiling gaze from Imrie's face. "The similarity is--remarkable," he said softly when the recital was finished. Then he added crisply: "Well, young man, what do you propose doing--next?" "I came to ask you that question," said Imrie briefly. The little rabbi pursed his lips thoughtfully. "So--you came to ask me. Well, I have answered it. I moved on--yes. But it is a hard answer--oh, quite hard." He was silent for a moment, snapping his finger-nails one against another. Suddenly he looked up. "Do you wish," he demanded, "to be a preacher?" He paused and bored Imrie with his sharp little eyes. "Do you wish to sway the multitudes with your eloquence? It is applause--yes--you seek? You want _your_ church--or the _people's_ church ... what?" "I'm afraid I don't quite...." "You must understand," said Weis bluntly. "It's quite essential. You wish to free yourself from dogmatic vestries. Very well--will you substitute for dogmatic vestries, your dogmatic self--yes?" And, when Imrie looked a little crestfallen, he added with a smile, "We're _all_ dogmatic, my young friend. To all of us freedom is the right to rule others." "What is the alternative?" "There is a plan--I've thought of it often. You want to avoid a bureaucratic Church. You must not founder in the Charybdis of an autocratic one. You have means of your own?" Imrie nodded. "That's excellent--for you. But do not finance the church on your money. It must be self-supporting. And don't have 'patrons.' You'll soon have another vestry." "But the control?"