THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITY
"He saw only the opportunity so mysteriously opened to him."
When Dan left Miss Farwell in the summer house at Judge Strong's he went
straight to his room.
Two or three people whom he met on the way turned when he had passed to
look back at him. Mrs. James talking over the fence with her next door
neighbor, wondered when he failed to return her greeting. And Denny from
his garden hailed him joyfully. But Dan did not check his pace. Reaching
his own gate he broke fairly into a run, and leaping up the stairway,
rushed into his room, closing and locking his door. Then he stood,
breathing hard, and smiling grimly at the foolish impulse that had made
him act for all the world like a thief escaping with his booty.
He puzzled over this strange feeling that possessed him, the feeling
that he had taken something that did not belong to him, until the thought
struck him that there might, after all, be good reason for the fancy;
that it might indeed be more than a fancy.
Pacing to and fro the length of his little study he recalled every
detail of that meeting in the Academy yard. And as he remembered how he
had consciously refrained from making known his position to the young
woman--not once, but several times when he knew that he should have
spoken, and how his questions, combined with the evident false impression
that his words had given her had led her to speak thoughts she would
never have dreamed of expressing had she known him, the conviction grew
that he had indeed--like a thief, taken something that did not belong to
him. And as he realized more and more how his silence must appear to her
as premeditated, and reflected how her fine nature would shrink from what
she could not but view as a coarse ungentlemanly trick he grew hot with
shame. No wonder, he told himself, that he had instinctively shrunk from
looking into the faces of the people whom he had met and had fled to the
privacy of his rooms.
Dan did not spare himself that afternoon, and yet beneath all the self
scorn he felt, there was a deeper sub-conscious conviction, that he was
not--at heart--guilty of the thing with which he charged himself. This
very conviction, though felt but dimly, made him rage the more. He had
the hopeless feeling of one caught in a trap--of one convicted of a
crime of which in the eyes of the law he was guilty, but which he knew
he had unwittingly committed.
The big fellow in so closely analyzing the woman's thoughts and feelings,
and in taking so completely her point of view, neglected himself. He
could not realize how true to _himself_ he had been that afternoon, or
how truly the impulse that had prompted him to deny his calling was an
instinct of his own strong manhood--the instinct to be accepted or
rejected for what he was within himself, rather than for the mere
accident of his calling and position in life.
One thing was clear, he must see Miss Farwell again. She must listen to
his explanation and apology. She must somehow understand. For apart from
his interest in the young woman herself, there was that purpose of the
minister to win her to the church. It was a monstrous thought that he
himself should be the means of strengthening her feeling against the
cause to which he had given his life. So he had gone to Judge Strong's
home early that evening determined to see her. But at the gate, when he
saw Dr. Harry turning in as if to stop, he had passed on in the dusk.
Later at prayer meeting his thoughts were far from the subject under
discussion. His own public petition was so faltering and uncertain that
Elder Jordan watched him suspiciously.
It would be interesting to know just how much the interest of the man in
the woman colored and strengthened the purpose of the preacher to win
this soul so antagonistic to his church.
The next day, Dan was putting the finishing touches to his sermon on
"The Christian Ministry" when his landlady interrupted him with the news
of the attempted suicide in Old Town. Upon hearing that the girl had at
one time been a member of his congregation, he went at once to learn
more of the particulars from Dr. Oldham. He found his old friend who
had returned from Old Town a half hour before, sitting in his big chair
on the front porch gazing at the cast-iron monument across the way. To
the young man's questions the Doctor returned only monosyllables or
grunts and growls that might mean anything or nothing at all. Plainly
the Doctor did not wish to talk. His face was dark and forbidding, and
under his scowling brows, his eyes--when Dan caught a glimpse of
them--were hard and fierce. The young man had never seen his friend in
such a mood and he could not understand.
Dan did not know that the kind-hearted old physician had just learned
from his wife that the girl with the bad reputation had called at the
house to see him a few hours before she had made the attempt to end her
life, and that she had been sent away by the careful Martha with the
excuse that the doctor was too busy to see her. Neither could the boy
know how the old man's love for him was keeping him silent lest, in his
present frame of mind, he say things that would strengthen that something
which they each felt had come between them.
Suddenly the Doctor turned his gaze from the monument and flashed a
meaning look straight into the brown eyes of the young minister. "She
was a member of your church. Why don't you go to see her? Ask the nurse
if there is anything the church can do." As Dan went down the walk he
added, "Tell Miss Farwell that I sent you." Then smiling grimly he
growled to himself, "You'll get valuable material for that sermon on
the ministry, or I miss my guess."
The nurse! The nurse! He was to see her again! The thought danced in
Dan's brain. How strangely the opportunity had come. The young minister
felt that the whole thing had, in some mysterious way, been planned to
the end he desired. In the care that the church would give this poor
girl the nurse would see how wrongly she had judged it. She would be
forced to listen to him now. Surely God had given him this opportunity!
What--the poor suicide?
Oh, but Dan was not thinking of the suicide. That would come later. Just
now his mind and heart were too full of his own desire to win this young
woman to the church. He saw only the opportunity so mysteriously opened
to him. Dan was thoroughly orthodox.
So in the brightness of the afternoon the pastor of Memorial Church went
along the street that, in the gray chill of the early morning, had echoed
the hurried steps of the doctor's horse. The homes--so silent when
the nurse had passed on her mission--were now full of life. The big
trees--dank and still then, now stirred softly in the breeze, and rang
with the songs of their feathered denizens. The pale stars were lost in
the infinite blue and the sunlight warmed and filled the air--flooding
street and home and lawn and flower and tree with its golden beauty. At
the top of Academy Hill Dan paused. For him no shroud of mist wrapped the
picturesque old building; no fog of mysterious depths hid the charming
landscape.
Recalling the things the nurse had said to him there under the oak on the
grassy knoll, and thinking of his sermon in answer--he smiled. It was a
good sermon, he thought, with honest pride--strong, logical, convincing.
And it was--_at that moment_.
With a confident stride he went on his way.