"If forms and words are of any use to him, a man will never come," he said; "if he comes, let him alone." And it may be that this difference between the Founder and his disciples was due to the fact that the Founder believed that, given a fair field in any honest mind, his views must prevail, whereas the disciples were not so strong in faith.
It is very possible the disciples were right, in a way; but still the Founder's scheme now and then caught a great prize that the disciples would have lost through their overgreat meddling.

The Founder would have repudiated the idea of differences in value between souls.

But men sometimes act on ideas they repudiate, and with very good results.
Whatever the merits or demerits of the Retreat might be, it was just the place Stafford wanted.

He shrank, almost with loathing, from the thought of exposing himself to well meant ministrations from men who were his inferiors: the theory of the equalizing effect of the sacred office, which appears to be held in great tranquillity by many who see the absurdity of parallel ideas applied in other spheres, was one of the fictions that proved entirely powerless over his mind at this juncture.
He did not say to himself that fools were fools and blind men blind, whatever their office, degree, or profession, but he was driven to the Retreat by a thought that a brutal speaker might have rendered for him in those words without essential misrepresentation.

Above all, he wanted quiet--time to understand the new forces and to estimate the good or evil of the new ideas.
Arriving there late in the evening of the same day on which he left Millstead, for the Retreat was situated on the borders of Exmoor and the journey from Paddington was long and slow, he was received by the Superintendent with the grave welcome and studious absence of questioning that was the rule of the house.