Now this mystical thing happened. As this son of a line of preachers
brooded on this unlovely strife among men, he lost the equipoise of the
scholar and student of modern history. He grew narrower and more
intense. The burden of his responsibility as a preacher of Christ grew
daily more insupportable.
Toward the end of the week he announced preaching in the schoolhouse on
Sunday afternoon, and at the hour set he found the room crowded with
people of all ages and sorts.
His heart grew heavy as he looked out over the room--on women nursing
querulous children, on the grizzled faces of grim-looking men, who
studied him with keen, unsympathetic eyes. He had hard, unfriendly
material to work with. There were but few of the opposite camp present,
while the Baptist leaders were all there, with more curiosity than
sympathy in their faces.
They exulted to think the next preacher to come among them as an
evangelist should be a Baptist.
After the singing, which would have dribbled away into failure but for
Mattie, Wallace rose, looking very white and weak, and began his
prayer. Some of the boys laughed when his voice stuck in his throat, but
he went on to the end of an earnest supplication, feeling he had not
touched them at all.
While they sang again, he sat looking down at them with dry throat and
staring eyes. How hard, how unchristian-like, they all were. What could
he say to them? He saw Mattie gazing up at him, and on the front seat
sat three beautiful little girls huddled together with hands clasped;
inexpressibly dainty by contrast. As he looked at them the thought came
to him, What is the goodness of a girl--of a child? It is not
partisan--it is not of creeds, of articles--it is goodness of thought,
of deeds. His face lighted up with the inward feeling of this idea, and
he rose resolutely.
"Friends, with the help of Christ I am come among you to do you good. I
shall hold meetings each night here in the schoolhouse until we can
unite and rebuild the church again. Let me say now, friends, that I was
educated a Baptist. My father was a faithful worker in the Baptist
Church, and so was his father before him. I was educated in a Baptist
college, and I came here hoping to build up a Baptist Church." He
paused.
"But I see my mistake. I am here to build up a Church of Christ, of good
deeds and charity and peace, and so I here say I am no longer a Baptist
or Methodist. I am only a preacher, and I will not rest until I rebuild
the church which stands rotting away there." His voice rang with
determination as he uttered those words.
The people listened. There was no movement now. Even the babies seemed
to feel the need of being silent. When he began again it was to describe
that hideous wreck. He delineated the falling plaster, the litter around
the pulpit, the profanation of the walls. "It is a symbol of your sinful
hearts!" he cried.
Much more he said, carried out of himself by his passion. It was as if
the repentant spirit of his denominational fathers were speaking through
him; and yet he was not so impassioned that he did not see, or at least
feel, the eyes of the strong young girl fixed upon him; his resolutions
were spoken to her, and a swift response seemed to leap from her eyes.
When it was over, some of the Methodists and one of the Baptists came up
to shake hands with him, awkwardly wordless, and the pressure of their
hands helped him. Many of the Baptist brethren slipped outside to
discuss the matter. Some were indignant, others much moved.
Allen went by him with an audible grunt of derision, with a dark scowl
on his face, but Mattie smiled at him, with tears still in her eyes. She
had been touched by his vibrant voice; she had no sins to repent of.
The skeptics of the neighborhood were quite generally sympathetic.
"You've struck the right trail now, parson," said Chapman, as they
walked homeward together. "The days of the old-time denominationalism
are about played out."
But the young preacher was not so sure of it, now that his inspiration
was gone. He remembered his debt to his college, to his father, to the
denomination, and it was not easy to set aside the grip of such
memories.
He sat late revolving the whole situation in his mind. When he went to
bed his problem was still with him, and involved itself with his dreams;
but always the young girl smiled upon him with sympathetic eyes and told
him to go on--or so it seemed to him.
He was silent at breakfast. He went to school with a feeling that a
return to teaching little tow-heads to count and spell was now
impossible. He sat at his scarred and dingy desk while they took their
places, and his eyes had a passionate intensity of prayer in them which
awed his pupils. He had assumed new grandeur and terror in their eyes.
When they were seated he bowed his head and uttered a short plea for
grace, and then he looked at them again.
On the low front seat, with dangling legs and red, round faces, sat the
little ones. Some way he could not call them to his knees and teach them
to spell; he felt as if he ought to call them to him, as Christ did, to
teach them love and reverence. It was impossible that they should not be
touched by this hideous neighborhood strife.
Behind them sat the older children, some of them with rough, hard, sly
faces. One or two grinned rudely and nudged each other. The older girls
sat with bated breath; they perceived something strange in the air. Most
of them had heard his sermon of the night before.
At last he broke silence. "Children, there is something I must say to
you this morning. I'm going to have meeting here to-night, and it may
be I shall not be your teacher any more--I mean in school. I wish you'd
go home to-day and tell your people to come to church here to-night. I
wish you'd all come yourselves. I want you to be good. I want you to
love God and be good. I want you to go home and tell your people the
teacher can't teach children how to read till he has taught the older
people to be kind and generous. You may put your books away, and school
will be dismissed."
The wondering children obeyed--some with glad promptness, others with
sadness, for they had already come to like their teacher very much.
As he sat by the door and watched them file out, it was as if he were a
king abdicating a throne, and these his faithful subjects.
Mrs. Allen came over with Mattie to see him that day. She was a good
woman, gentle and prayerful, and she said, with much emotion:
"Oh, Mr. Stacey, I do hope you can patch things up here. If you could
only touch his heart! He don't mean to do wrong, but he's so set in his
ways--if he says a thing he sticks to it."
Stacey turned to Mattie for a word of encouragement, but she only looked
away. It was impossible for her to put into words her feeling in the
matter, which was more of admiration for his courage than for any part
of his religious zeal. He was so different from other men.
It did him good to have these women come, and he repeated his vow:
"By the grace of our Lord, I am going to rebuild the Cyene Church!" and
his face paled and his eyes grew luminous.
The girl shivered with emotion. He seemed to recede from her as he
spoke, and to grow larger, too. Such nobility of purpose was new and
splendid to her.
* * * * *
The revival was wondrously dramatic. The little schoolhouse was crowded
to the doors night by night. The reek of stable-stained coats and boots,
the smell of strong tobacco, the effluvia of many breaths, the heat, the
closeness were forgotten in the fervor of the young evangelist's
utterances. His voice took on wild emotional cadences which sounded deep
places in the heart. To these people, long unused to religious oratory,
it was like the return of John and Isaiah. It was poetry and the drama,
and processions and apocalyptic visions. This youth had the histrionic
spell, too, and his slender body lifted and dilated, and his head took
on majesty and power, and the fling of his white hand was a challenge
and an appeal.
A series of stirring events took place on the third night.
On Wednesday Jacob Turner rose and asked the prayers of his neighbors,
and was followed by two Baptist spearmen of the front rank. On Thursday
the women were weeping on one another's bosoms; only one or two of the
men held out--old Deacon Allen and his antagonist, Stewart Marsden.
Grim-visaged old figures they were, placed among repentant men and
weeping women. They sat like rocks in the rush of the two factions
moving toward each other for peaceful union. Granitic, narrow, keen of
thrust, they seemed unmoved, while all around them, one by one, skeptics
acknowledged the pathos and dignity of the preacher's views of life and
death.
Meanwhile the young evangelist lived at high pressure. He grew thinner
and whiter each night. He toiled in the daytime to formulate his
thoughts for the evening. He could not sleep till far toward morning.
The food he ate did him little good, while his heart went out constantly
to his people in strenuous supplication. It was testimony of his human
quality that he never for one moment lost that shining girl face out of
his thought. He looked for it there night after night. It was his
inspiration in speaking, as at the first.
On the nights when Mattie was not there his speech was labored (as the
elders noticed), but on the blessed nights when she came and sang, her
voice, amid all the rest, came to him, and uttered poetry and peace like
a rill of cool, sweet water. And afterward, when he walked home under
the stars, his mind went with her, she was so strong and lithe and good
to see. He did not realize the worshipping attitude the girl took before
his divine duties.
At last the great day came--the great night.
In some way, perhaps by the growing mass of rushing emotion set in
action by some deep-going phrase, or perhaps by some interior slow
weakening of stubborn will, Deacon Allen gave way; and when the preacher
called for penitents, the old man struggled to his feet, his seamed,
weather-beaten face full of grotesque movement. He broke out:
"Brethren, pray for me; I'm a miserable sinner. I want to confess my
sins--here--before ye all." He broke into sobbing terrible to hear. "My
heart is made--flesh again--by the blessed power of Christ...."
He struggled to get his voice. One or two cried, "Praise God!" but most
of them sat silent, awed into immobility.
The old man walked up the aisle. "I've been rebellious--and now I want
to shake hands with you all--and I ask your prayers." He bent down and
thrust his hand to Marsden, his enemy, while the tears streamed down his
face.
Marsden turned white with a sort of fear, but he rose awkwardly and
grasped the outstretched hand, and at the touch of palms every soul rose
as if by electric shock. "Amens!" burst forth. The preacher began a
fervent prayer, and came down toward the grizzled, weeping old men, and
they all embraced, while some old lady with sweet, quavering voice
raised a triumphal hymn, in which all joined, and found grateful relief
from their emotional tension.