THE RESURRECTION SERMON
Sir Michael Manichoe was the great help and standby of St. Mary's. His
father had been a wealthy banker in Rome, and a Jew. The son, who had
enormously increased his inherited wealth, was an early convert to
Christianity during his Oxford days in England. He was the Conservative
member for a division in Lincolnshire, where his great country house was
situated, and had become a pillar of the Church and State in England. In
the House of Commons he presented the somewhat curious spectacle of a
Jew by birth leading the moderate "Catholic" party. He was the great
antagonist of Constantine Schuabe, and with equal wealth and position,
though Schuabe was by far the more brilliant of the two men, he devoted
all his energies to the opposition of the secular and agnostic
influences of his political rival.
Every Sunday during the session, when he was in London, Sir Michael
drove to St. Mary's for both morning and evening service. He was church
warden, and intimately concerned in all the parochial business, while
his purse was always open at Father Ripon's request.
Gortre had been introduced to Sir Michael during the week, and he knew
the great man purposed attending to hear his first sermon at St. Mary's
on the Sunday evening.
He prepared his discourse with extreme care. A natural wish to make a
good first impression animated him; but, as he sat late on the Saturday
night, finally arranging his notes, he began to be conscious of new and
surprising thoughts about the coming event. Earlier in the evening he
had been talking to Hands, but the archæologist had gone to bed and left
him alone.
The day had been a gloomy one. A black pall of fog fell over London at
dawn, and had remained all day, almost choking him as he said evensong
in the almost empty church.
All day long he had felt strangely overweighted and depressed. A chance
paragraph in an evening paper, stating that Mr. Schuabe, M.P., had
returned from a short Continental trip, started an uneasy and gloomy
train of thought. The memory of the terrible night at Walktown recurred
to him with a horrible sense of unreality, the picture blurred somewhat,
as if the fingers of the disease which had struck him down had already
been pressing on his brain when he had been alone with the millionaire.
Much of what he remembered of that dread interview must have been
delusion. And yet in all other matters he was sane and unprejudiced
enough. Many times he had met and argued with unbelievers. They had
saddened him, but no more. Why was it that this man, notorious atheist
as he was, filled him with a shuddering fear, a horror for which he had
no name?
Then also, what had been the significance of the incident at Dieppe--its
true significance? Sir Robert Llwellyn had also inspired him with a
feeling of utter loathing and abhorrence, though perhaps in a less
degree. There was the sudden glimpse of Schuabe's signature on the
letter. What was the connection between the two men? How could the
Antichristian be in friendly communion with the greatest Higher Critic
of the time?
He recalled an even more sinister occurrence, or so it had seemed to
him. Two days after his first introduction to Llwellyn and the dinner
at the Pannier d'Or he had seen him enter the Paris train _with Schuabe_
himself, who had just arrived from England. He had said nothing of the
incident to Mr. Byars or Helena. They would have regarded it as ordinary
enough. They knew nothing of what had passed between him and Schuabe.
The deliberate words of Sir Robert at the restaurant recurred to him
again and again, taking possession of his brain and ousting all other
thoughts. What new discoveries was the Professor hinting at?
What did the whole obsession of his brain mean?
Curiously enough, he felt certain that these thoughts were in no way
heralds of a new attack of brain fever. He knew this for a certainty. It
seemed as if the persistent whisperings within him were rather the
results of some spiritual message, as if the unseen agency which
prompted them had some definite end and purpose in view.
The more he prayed the stronger his premonitions became; added force was
given to them, as if they were the direct causes of his supplications.
It almost seemed that God was speaking to him.
He had questioned Hands cautiously, trying to learn if any new and
important facts bearing upon Biblical history were indeed likely to be
discovered in the near future.
But the answer did not amount to very much. The new and extensive
excavations, under the permission of the lately granted firman from the
Turkish Government, were only just beginning. The real work was to
commence when Hands had finished his work in London and had returned to
take charge of the operations.
Of course, Hands had said there were possibilities of discovery of
first-class importance, but he doubted it. The locality of Golgotha and
the Holy Sepulchre was already established, in Hands's opinion. He had
but little doubt of the authenticity of the established sites.
Llwellyn's theories he scouted altogether, while agreeing with him in
his negation of the Gordon Tomb.
So there had been very little from Hands that was in any way
satisfactory to Basil.
But as he sat in the great silence of the night and read over the heads
of the sermon a great sense of comfort came to him. He felt a mysterious
sense of power, not merely because he knew the work was good, but
something beyond that. He was conscious that for some reason or other
that particular sermon which he was about to preach was one on which
much depended. He could not say how or why he knew the thing was fraught
with destiny to himself or others. He only knew it.
Many years afterwards he remembered that quiet night, and the help which
seemed to come to him suddenly, a renewed hope and confidence after the
mental misery of the day.
When he looked back on the terrible and stupendous events in which he
had played so prominent a part, he was able to see clearly the chain of
events, and to place his experience about what he always afterwards
called his "Resurrection sermon" in their proper sequence.
Looking back through the years, he saw that a more than mortal power was
guiding him towards the fulfilment of a Divine purpose.
But that night as he said his prayers before going to sleep he only felt
a sweet security as he glanced at the MS. on the chair by his bedside.
The future was not yet revealed to him. God spared him the torture of
foreknowledge.
* * * * *
The pulpit was high above the heads of the people, much higher than is
usual, a box of stone set in the great arch of the chancel.
As Gortre stood for a moment, after the prayer, he kissed the stole and
placed it, as a yoke, upon his shoulders. He looked down the great
building and saw the hundreds of watchful, expectant faces, with an
uplifting sense of power. He felt as if he were a mouthpiece of strange,
unseen forces. The air seemed full of wings.
For a moment the preacher paused and sent a keen glance over the
congregation below. He saw Sir Michael Manichoe, dark, aquiline,
Semitic, sitting in his front pew. A few seats behind him, with a sudden
throb of surprise but nothing else, the calm and evil beauty of
Constantine Schuabe's face looked up at him.
The strangeness of the appearance and the shock of it had at that moment
no menace or intimidation for him. Standing there to deliver God's
message, in God's house, his enemy seemed to have no power to throw his
brain into its old fear and tumult.
Another face, unknown to him, arrested his attention.
The sexes were not separated for worship in St. Mary's. In the same seat
where Schuabe sat was a woman, dark, handsome, expensively dressed.
She also was Jewish in appearance, though it was obvious that there was
no connection between her and the millionaire. Her face, as the young
clergyman's eyes rested on it for a second, seemed to be curiously
familiar, as if he saw it every day of his life, but it nevertheless
struck no _personal_ note.
Gortre began to speak, taking for his text part of a verse from the
Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans--"_Declared to be the Son of God with
power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the
dead._"
"In this world of to-day," he began calmly, and with a certain
deliberation and precision in his utterance, "what men in general are
hungering after is a positive assurance of actual spiritual agency in
the world. They crave for something to hold by which is outside
themselves, and which cannot have grown out of the inner persuasions of
men. They cannot understand people who tell them that, whether the
events of the Gospels actually passed upon earth or not, they may
fashion their own dispositions all the same, on the supposition that
these events occurred. If I can to-night show that any appearance of the
Risen Lord is attested in the same way as are certain facts commonly
accepted as history, I shall have accomplished as much as I can hope."
Then, very carefully, Gortre went through the scientific and historical
evidences for the truth of the Resurrection. Gradually, as he marshalled
his proofs and brought forth one after the other, he began, by a sort of
unconscious hypnotism of the eye, to make the seat where Schuabe and the
strange woman sat his objective.
Many speakers have this automatic habit of addressing one or two persons
as if they were the ear of the whole congregation. It is said that by
such means, even if unconsciously employed, the brain becomes more
concentrated and clearer for the work in hand.
Slowly the preacher's voice became more resonant and triumphant. To many
of the congregation the overwhelming and stupendous evidences for the
truth of the Gospel narratives which the study of late years has
collected was entirely new. The Higher Criticism, the fact that it is
not only in science that "discoveries" can be made, the excavations in
the East and the newly discovered MSS., with their variations of
reading, the possibility that the lost Aramaic original of St. Matthew's
Gospel may yet be discovered, were all things which came to them for
the first time in their lives. Gortre's words began to open up to them
an entirely new train of thought. Their interest was profoundly
quickened.
Very few clergymen of middle age are cognisant of the latest theological
thought. Time, money, and lack of education alike prevent them. The
slight mental endowment and very ordinary education which are all that
is absolutely necessary for an ordination candidate, are not realised by
the ordinary member of a church congregation. The mass of the English
clergy to-day are content to leave such questions alone, to do their
duty simply, to impose upon their flock the necessity of "faith," and to
deny the right of individual judgment and speculation.
They do not realise that the world of their middle age is more educated,
and so more intelligent, than the world of their youth, and that, if the
public intellect is nurtured by the public, those whose duty it is to
keep it within the fold of Christianity must provide it with a food
suited to its development.
Gortre, in his sermon, had crystallised and boiled down into pregnant
paragraphs, without circumlocution or obscurity, all the brilliant work
of Latham, Westcott, Professor Ramsay, and Homersham Cox. He quoted
Renan's passage from _Les Apôtres_, dealing with the finding of the
empty tomb, and showed the flaws and fallacies in that brilliant piece
of antichristian suggestion.
As he began to bring his arguments to a close he was conscious that the
people were with him. He could feel the brains around him thinking in
unison; it was almost as if he _heard_ the thoughts of the congregation.
The dark, handsome woman stared straight up at him. Trouble was in her
eyes, an awakened consciousness, and Gortre knew that the truth was
dropping steadily into her mind, and that conviction was unwelcome and
alarming.
And he felt also the bitter antagonism which was alive and working
behind the impassive face and half-closed eyes of the millionaire below.
It was a silent duel between them. He knew that his words were full of
meaning, _even of conviction_, to the man, and yet he was subjectively
conscious of some _reserve_ of force, some hidden sense of fearful
power, a desperate resolve which he could not overcome.
His soul wrestled in this dark, mysterious conflict as with a devil, but
could not prevail.
He finished all his argument, the last of his proofs. There was a hushed
silence in the church.
Then swiftly, with a voice which trembled with the power that was given
him, he called them to repentance and a new life. _If_, he said, his
words had carried conviction of the truth of Christ's resurrection, of
His divinity, then, believing that, there was but one course open to
them all. For to know the truth, and to believe it, and to continue in
indifference, was to kill the soul.
It was over. Father Ripon had pronounced the blessing, the great organ
was thundering out the requiem of another Sunday, and Sir Michael was
shaking hands warmly with Basil in the vestry.
Gortre was tired and shaken by the long, nervous strain, but the evident
pleasure of Father Ripon and Sir Michael, the knowledge that he had
acquitted himself well, was comforting and sustaining.
He walked home, down quiet Holborn, curiously dead without the traffic
of a week day and the lights of the shop fronts, and not reanimated by
the strolling pedestrians, young people of the lower classes from the
East End, who thronged it.
Lincoln's Inn was wonderfully soothing and quiet as his footsteps echoed
in the old quadrangle. After a lonely, tranquil supper--Hands was at a
dinner-party somewhere in Mayfair and Spence was at the office of _The
Daily Wire_ preparing for Monday's paper--he wheeled a small
writing-desk up to the fireside and began a long letter of news and
thankfulness to Helena.
He pictured the pleasant dining-room at Walktown, the Sunday night's
supper,--an institution at the Vicarage after the labours of the busiest
day in the week,--with a guest or two perhaps.
He knew they would be thinking of him, as he of them, and pictured the
love-light in his lady's sweet, calm eyes.