On Sunday morning his fellow-curate came to his room to accompany him
to church. The Rev. Joshua Golightly was a little man with a hook nose,
small keen eyes, scanty hair, and a voice that was something between
a whisper and a whistle. He bowed subserviently, and made meek little
speeches.
“I do trust you will not be disappointed with our church and service. We
do all we can to make them worthy of our people.”
As they walked down the streets he talked first of the church
officers--there were honorary wardens, gentlemen sidesmen, and lady
superintendents of floral decorations; then of the choir, which
consisted of organist and choir master, professional members, voluntary
members, and choir secretary. The anthem was sung by a professional
singer, generally the tenor from the opera; the canon could always
get such people--he was a great favourite with artistes and “the
profession.” Of course, the singers were paid, and the difficulty this
week had been due to the exorbitant fee demanded by the Italian barytone
from Covent Garden.
Disappointment and disenchantment were falling on John Storm at every
step.
All Saints' was a plain, dark structure with a courtyard in front.
The bells were ringing, and a line of carriages was drawing up at the
portico as at the entrance to a theatre, discharging their occupants
and passing on. Vergers in yellow and buff, with knee-breeches, silk
stockings, and powdered wigs, were receiving the congregation at the
doors.
“Let us go in by the west door--I should like you to see the screen to
advantage,” said Mr. Golightly.
The inside of the church was gorgeous. As far up as the clerestory
every wall was frescoed, and every timber of the roof was gilded. At the
chancel end there was a wrought-iron screen of delicate tracery, and the
altar was laden with gold candlesticks. Above the altar and at either
side of it were stained glass windows. The morning sun was shining
through them and filling the chancel with warm splashes of light. Ladies
in beautiful spring dresses were following the vergers up the aisles.
“This way,” the curate whispered, and John Storm entered the sacristy by
a low doorway like the auditorium entrance to a stage. There he met
some six others of his fellow-curates. They nodded to him and went
on arranging their surplices. The choir were gathering in their own
quarters, where the violins were tuning up and the choir boys were
laughing and behaving after their kind.
The bell slackened and stopped, and the organ began to play. When all
were ready they stepped into a long corridor and formed in line with
their faces to the chancel and their backs to a little door, at which a
verger in blue stood guard.
“The canon's room,” whispered Mr. Golightly.
A prayer was said by some one, the choir sang the response, and then
they walked in procession to their places in the chancel, the choir
boys first, the canon last. Seen through the tracery of the screen, the
congregation appeared to fill every sitting in the church with a blaze
of light and colour, and the atmosphere was laden with delicate perfume.
The service was choral. An anthem was sung at the close of the sermon,
the collection being made during the hymn before it. The professional
singer looked like any other chorister in his surplice, save for his
swarthy face and heavy mustache.
The canon preached. He wore his doctor's hood of scarlet cloth. His
sermon was eloquent and literary, and it was delivered with elocutionary
power. There were many references to great writers, painters, and
musicians, including a panegyric on Michael Angelo and a quotation
from Browning. The sermon concluded with a passage from Dante in the
original.
John Storm was dazed and perplexed. When the service was over he came
out alone, returning down the nave, which was now empty but still
fragrant. Among other notices pasted on a board in the porch he found
this one: “The vicar and wardens, having learned with regret that purses
have been lost on leaving the church, recommend the congregation to
bring only such money as they may need for the offertory.”
Had he been to the house of God? No matter! God ruled the world in
righteousness and wrought out everything to his own glory.
Next morning he began duty as chaplain at the hospital, and when he had
finished the reading of his first prayers he could see that he had lived
down some of the derision due to his adventure with the old woman. That
poor old bag of bones was sinking and could not last much longer.
Going out by way of the dispensary, he saw Glory again, and heard that
she had been at church the day before. It was lovely. All those hundreds
of nice-looking people in gay colours, with the rustle of silk and the
hum of voices--it was beautiful--it reminded her of the sea in summer.
He asked her what she thought of the sermon, and she said, “Well,
it wasn't religion exactly--not what I call religion--not a 'reg'lar
rousing rampage for sowls,' as old Chalse used to say, but----”
“Glory,” he said impetuously, “I'm to preach my first sermon on
Wednesday.”
He did not ask her to come, but inquired if she was on night duty. She
answered No, and then somebody called her.
“She'll be there,” he told himself, and he walked home with uplifted
head. He would look for her; he would catch her eye; she would see that
it was not necessary to be ashamed of him again.
And then close behind, very close, came recollections of her appearance.
He could reconstruct her new dress by memory--her face was easy to
remember. “After all, beauty is a kind of virtue,” he thought. “And all
natural friendship is good for the progress of souls if it is built upon
the love of God.”
He wrote nothing and learned nothing by heart. The only preparation he
made for his sermon was thought and prayer. When the Wednesday night
came he was very nervous. But the church was nearly empty, and the
vergers, who were in their everyday clothes, had only partially lit
up the nave. The canon had done him the honour to be present; his
fellow-curates read the prayers and lessons.
As he ascended the pulpit he thought he saw the white bonnets of a group
of nurses in the dim distance of one of the aisles, but he did not see
Glory and he dared not look again. His text was, “My kingdom is not
of this world.” He gave it out twice, and his voice sounded strange to
himself--so weak and thin in that hollow place.
When he began to speak his sentences seemed awkward and difficult. The
things of the world were temporal and the nations of the world were out
of harmony with God. Men were biting and devouring each other who ought
to live as brothers. “Cheat or be cheated” was the rule of life, as
the modern philosopher had said. On the one side were the many dying of
want, on the other side the few occupied with poetry and art, writing
addresses to flowers, and peddling--in the portraiture of the moods
and methods of love, living lives of frivolity, taking pleasure in mere
riches and the lusts of the eye, while thousands of wretched mortals
were grovelling in the mire.... Then where was our refuge? ...
The Church was the refuge of God's people ... from Christ came the
answer--the answer--the----
His words would not flow. He fought hard, threw out another passage,
then stammered, began again, stammered again, felt hot, made a fresh
effort, flagged, rattled out some words he had fixed in his mind,
perspired, lost his voice, and finally stopped in the middle of a
sentence and said, “And now to God the Father--” and came down from the
pulpit.
His sermon had been a failure, and he knew it. On going back to the
sacristy the Reverend Golightly congratulated him with a simper and a
vapid smile. The canon was more honest but more vain. He mingled lofty
advice with gentle reproof. Mr. Storm had taken his task too lightly.
Better if he had written his sermon and read it. Whatever might
serve for the country, congregations in London--at All Saints'
especially--expected culture and preparation.
“For my own part I confess--nay, I am proud to declare--my watchword is
Rehearse! Rehearse! Rehearse!”
As for the doctrine of the sermon it was not above question. It was
necessary to live in the _nineteenth_ century, and it was impossible to
apply to its conditions the rules of life that had been proper to the
first.
John Storm made no resistance. He slept badly that night. As often as he
dozed off he dreamed that he was trying to do something he could not do,
and when he awoke he became hot as with the memory of a disgrace. And
always at the back of his shame was the thought of Glory.
Next morning he was alone in his room and fumbling the toast on his
breakfast table, when the door opened and a cheery voice cried, “May I
no come in, laddie?”
An elderly lady entered. She was tall and slight and had a long, fine
face, with shrewd but kindly eyes, and nearly snow-white hair.
“I'm Jane Callender,” she said, “and I couldna wait for an introduction
or sic bother, but must just come and see ye. Ay, laddie, it was a
bonnie sermon yon! I havena heard the match of it since I came frae
Edinburgh and sat under the good Doctor Guthrie. Now _he_ was nae
slavish reader neither--none of your paper preachers was Thomas. My
word, but you gave us the right doctrine, too! They're given over to
the worship of Beelzebub--half these church-going folks! Oh, these
Pharisees! They are enough to sour milk. I wish they had one neck and
somebody would just squeeze it. Now, where did ye hear that, Jane? But
no matter! And the lasses are worse than the men, with their fashions
and foldololls. They love Jesus, but they like him best in heaven, not
bothering down in Belgravia. But I must be going my ways. I left James
on the street, and there's nae living with the man if you keep his
horses waiting. Good-morning til ye! But eh, laddie, I'm afraid for ye!
I'm thinking--I'm thinking ... but come and see me at Victoria Square.
Good-morning!”
She had rattled this off at a breath, and had hardly given time for a
reply, when her black silk was rustling down the stairs.
John Storm remembered that the canon had spoken of her. She was the good
woman who kept the home for girls at Soho.
“The good creature only came to comfort me,” he thought. But Glory! What
was Glory thinking? That morning after prayers at the hospital he went
in search of her in the out-patient department, but she pretended to be
overwhelmed with work, and only nodded and smiled and excused herself.
“I haven't got a moment this morning either for the king or his dog. I'm
up to my eyes in bandages, and have fourteen plasters on my conscience,
and now I must run away to my little boy whose leg was amputated on
Saturday.”
He understood her, but he came back in the evening and was resolved to
face it out.
“What did you think of last night, Glory?” Then she put on a look of
blank amazement.
“Why, what happened? Oh, of course, the sermon! How stupid of me! Do you
know I forgot all about it?”
“You were not there, then?”
“Don't ask me. Really, I'm ashamed; after my promise to grandfather,
too! But Wednesday doesn't count anyway, does it? You'll preach on
Sunday--and then!”
His feeling of relief was followed by a sense of deeper humiliation.
Glory had not even troubled herself to remember. Evidently he was
nothing to her, nothing; while she----
He walked home through St. James's Park, and under the tall trees the
peaceful silence of the night came down on him. The sharp clack of the
streets was deadened to a low hum as of the sea afar off. Across the
gardens he could see the clock in the tower of Westminster, and hear
the great bell strike the quarters. London! How little and selfish all
personal thoughts were in the contemplation of the mighty city! He had
been thinking only of himself and his own little doings. It was all so
small and pitiful!
“Did my shame at my failure in the pulpit proceed solely from fear of
losing the service of God, or did it proceed from wounded ambition, from
pride, from thoughts of Glory----”
But the peaceful stars were over him. It was a majestic night.