DEAD IDOLS
Arnold Imrie was of clear Scotch descent. And among his forebears had
been those grim Covenanters to whom compromise was anathema. He had a
strong body and a strong intellect, but stronger than both combined was
the resistless overlord he called his conscience. Sydney Smith's
aspersions upon the impenetrability of the Scotch skull are well known,
though their justice may be questioned. But it is indisputable that
nothing short of the heroic measures he recommended would suffice to
separate Imrie from a resolve, once firmly made. Being human, he saw
many things dimly, and some quite falsely. But as he saw he lived, and
there was no power in the earth or out of it to make him evade or
equivocate. Sometimes this sturdy candour made him noble: sometimes it
made him tiresome: and once in a way it merely made him ridiculous. But
though for long periods it might remain dormant, it was none the less
the prime impetus in his life.
Judith's derision, her more or less obvious contempt, had wounded him
more than he would have believed possible; and her touch, though light,
had found spots that were sorer than he had suspected. Her calm disdain
was like an acid, dissolving away the crust of unimportant occupation
and meticulous conformity which had protected his ideals from the
corruptive action of reality. He shivered, figuratively, at the
revelation.
One of her mordant phrases was poignantly clear. Again and again it
recurred to him, always with a question attached. He tried to dismiss
it, and could not. She had called him "too much of a clergyman--not
enough of a man." As he walked home, he analysed its meaning, and tried
to disguise it in sophistries. But the intellectual honesty which was
his at base, forbade. The meaning was far too manifest. And at intervals
through the week, he strove to force his thoughts into an effective
answer. But always there was failure at the end.
Of course such charges as she had made to him were not new. The
literature of the day was full of them. But hitherto he had been able to
keep his defences intact. When his own logic failed him, there was
always the logic of his schooling and of his contemporaries upon which
to fall back. But for such heresies to spring from Judith--that was
treachery within the gates. He resented it bitterly, and he was appalled
as the weapons so strong in the past now crumpled in his hands.
A whisper grew louder and louder in his soul, a question sounded more
and more relentlessly. And when it would brook no more delay,
reluctantly, sick at heart, and filled with fear at the outcome, he
hauled down his flag of truce and gave the devil battle.
It was well after midnight of Saturday when the last gun was fired, and
the struggle was over. With lips compressed, and brow furrowed, and with
his tongue parched by the pipes he had smoked, Imrie capitulated.
On the morrow he would put his life to the test.
But when he stood in the pulpit and faced his congregation, awaiting him
with courteous expectancy, as it had waited so often, his heart
well-nigh failed him. Slowly he let his eyes rove over the throng,
brilliant in costume, exuding the indefinable aroma of power and luxury.
These men and women of St. Viateur's were the cream of the community. It
was no small thing to be the shepherd of such a flock. The silence grew
oppressive, while he hesitated. He seemed to look for someone. Finally
he found what he sought. His face hardened and his teeth clicked so
sharply that those in the pews near at hand could almost hear the sound.
Judith was in a seat well back in the church. Good was beside her.
Imrie's task had suddenly become far harder, yet even more imperative.
He hesitated no longer.
He cleared his throat and his eyes wandered, raptly, as of old, into
the dim vastness of the rafters. "_Think not that I am come to send
peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword_," he said
impressively. "Text taken from the Gospel according to St. Matthew,
tenth chapter, thirty-fourth verse."
He paused at that point, as he had paused Sundays without end, and the
congregation, as if at a signal, seemed to settle back and make itself
resignedly comfortable against the duty it faced. There was a subdued
but general coughing, and the whispering rustle of silks: then a calm
hush.
But the preacher had not uttered a dozen words before the expectant
quiet changed sensibly. It was not his words which caused the change,
but his tone. And it was not that his tone was dramatic, but that it was
not. The very fact that he spoke with a complete freedom from anything
histrionic presented a contrast which amazed.
But as the significance of the lesson he was drawing from the text
became clear to them, astonishment gave place to an almost ominous,
certainly an unsympathetic, attention.
Never in his career had he had more heedful listeners. As if magically,
the news seemed to have percolated to the most obtuse intelligences that
grave matters were transpiring. Once or twice there was a sibilant
inrush of breath from some auditor too dumfounded for control. But for
the rest there was utter silence. There was not a rustle nor a cough.
The congregation of St. Viateur's had changed its character. It was
playing a different rôle. It was as if an epicure had bitten caviar and
tasted quinine. It waited.
Meanwhile, the Reverend Arnold Imrie was recording his new-found belief
that the peace of Christ was not a complacent acceptance of earthly
misery, but a dynamic struggle against the few who dispossessed--or
would dispossess--the many; that the Man of Sorrows was a rebel,
seeking, not to bring men to heaven, but heaven to men; that he brought
a sword, sharp-pointed for the blood of injustice, for which, injustice,
terrified, crucified him; and he was asking, very simply but very
clearly, whether the charge of heretics that time had brought about a
change between preaching Christ and preaching dogma, was true.
He went calmly on, opening, though they never suspected it, the
innermost chambers of his heart to them, taking them into his confidence
as he had never before taken even himself. For the first time, he did
not preach: it was rather a mutual inventory before the God they
worshipped, a dispassionate analysis of the institutions they revered,
to see if, since they had become idols, they had deteriorated or no.
Only once did his emotionless manner desert him. Then without euphemism,
he lashed them for their luxuries, for the repletion of their bellies,
for the ideals of the spirit that they had allowed to die of starvation.
For a few minutes he waxed eloquent and bitter and cruel. With a crash
of his fist on the pulpit rail he repeated the words, "_let him take up
his cross and follow me_," and hammered home to them, with brutal logic
and remorseless clarity, what they meant.
It was a new Jesus which he painted for them, in bold sharp strokes. The
Lamb of God, the doe-eyed martyr to vicarious atonement, vanished, and
in his place stood a virile battler for human rights.
The strongest sentiment in the minds of the listeners was one of
bewilderment. They watched, with something approaching admiration, the
portrait as it grew more vivid before their eyes, and a few even
admitted in it a specious fidelity. But none could comprehend at all
clearly the reason for their rector's complete and sudden estrangement
from the conceptions which he had worshipped hitherto with an orthodoxy
beyond suspicion.
And yet the explanation was profoundly simple. In the first place he had
come away from his talk with Judith to study Scripture with new eyes. In
words so familiar that he could quote them he had found new meaning. He
had realised, with a shock, that always until then he had given a
superficial acceptance to the interpretations of others, and in natural
consequence he had set himself to the business of interpretation
assisted by nothing but his own powers of logic and analysis. Once the
new keystone was placed, the change in the entire arch was inevitable
and immediate. He had only to secure a new postulate: the rest of the
syllogism followed as a matter of course.
The second part of the explanation was simpler still. From the time that
man emerged from his female origin, man has been doing things, both
sublime and foolish, to win the regard of woman. In the little boy who
jumps off a high place because a little girl "dared" him to jump, may be
found the key to Imrie's puzzling transformation. Judith had dared him
to be more man than clergyman. His eyes were fixed on her as he jumped.
There can be no doubt that he went further than he had intended when he
entered the pulpit. But as speech clarifies thought, the very course of
maintaining his new argument strengthened him in it, and his fears and
hesitancies vanished. He left no doubt in other minds, as to his
meaning, as he cleared away the doubts in his own.
Judith, listening in amazement with the rest, realised, as did few, how
characteristic of him it all was. She felt that she could almost trace
the steps which had brought him to this point. Her own attitude had
played a large share, she felt certain. Her doubts had set up doubts in
him. He had tried to dissipate them, and had failed. So far he was quite
like other men. But then he had resolved to tell his congregation that
he had failed. In that he was different. Other men would have waited
longer, have hesitated and put off and pondered, some to the end of
their lives. Not so with Imrie. A resolution once made was turned into
action without delay, be the consequences what they might. The one
outstanding distinction of his nature was his unfailing courage.
The whole procedure, involved and incomprehensible and distressing as
she knew it must appear to most minds, was perfectly clear to her. She
had put questions to him that he could not answer. So he had resolved to
put them, without equivocation or delay, to his congregation. That to
them these questions did not betoken honest doubt, but downright heresy,
was no concern of his. They had to hear, and having heard, they had to
decide what their significance was for him and for them, and for the
relations between them. That he realised quite clearly that he was
jeopardising his professional future, she did not for a moment doubt.
But that realisation, she knew very well, would only confirm him the
more strongly in his purpose.
Suddenly she realised that he was bringing his remarkable sermon to a
close. His voice sank, becoming almost conversational, though it
penetrated to the furthest corner of the church.
It was the closing plea of a lawyer before a jury of his peers. He had
shown what he believed to be the fallacies in their relations to the
Lord Jesus, and the fallacies in his own; he had shown the failure of
the Church, which meant them as well as himself, to live up to its
social significance; he had demonstrated with vivid brutality, the
inconsistency between their professions of faith and their daily lives;
he had humbled himself before his ideals and sought to make them do
likewise; and now, very gently, he was asking for the verdict.
He paused for a moment before his last words, and swept the congregation
with his eyes. They saw far more than was there to see. They saw his
seminary days, when the world looked so simple and so enticing. They saw
the early days of his charge of St. Viateur's, when the knowledge of
actual achievement was not troubled by spiritual doubts. They saw the
Sundays, innumerable, when his words, received by the great ones of the
community with admiration and approval, had been followed by the little
flatteries to which no human heart is immune. Then a lump rose in his
throat, and his gaze came nearer. Something like tears came into his
eyes as he surveyed these friends whom he was deliberately transforming
into something perilously like enemies--for no reason save that he must.
They would never understand--never. And yet he must go on--to the end if
need be. That was his destiny.
Quietly he put his last question to them, "What are you going to do
about it?" Then he closed his eyes for a moment, opened them to stare
unseeing at judge and jury, sighed softly, and abruptly left the pulpit.
The answer was not long in coming. He knew that it would not be, and he
dallied in the vestry, purposely. Judge Wolcott, kindly and genial,
approached him with outstretched hand.
"Arnold, it was magnificent," he said, with a paternal clap on his
shoulder, adding, in an undertone, though no one was near, "but I don't
think I would repeat it."
"Why?" asked Imrie coldly.
The Judge tugged at his white beard nervously. Then he patted the
younger man again with what seemed like a somewhat exaggerated
friendliness.
"Oh, come now, Arnold, don't get on your high horse. You know what I
mean. That sort of thing's all right--occasionally. But it's
juvenile...."
"Juvenile?"
"Well, perhaps not that. But it's young, sophomoric, journalistic,
sentimental--you understand, I'm sure."
"Quite."
"We have some pretty conservative members here, you know. As laymen go,
they're powerful." He stopped and watched Imrie, waiting for the effect
of his words to sink in. "For a young man, practically at the outset of
his career, to offend them--would be unwise."
Imrie's coldness dissolved, and he smiled broadly.
"We know each other too well to fence, Judge. Let's be frank with each
other."
"But I am frank," cried the older man.
"Not entirely. You're trying to reprimand me without seeming to do it."
"Not at all. I'm merely--ah--advising you."
"I see. And if I don't choose to heed the--ah--advice ... what then?"
The judge lifted his finely manicured fingers and shrugged his
shoulders. "You're not a boy, Arnold. You have eyes--and ears."
Imrie laughed again, but not pleasantly.
"Is this official?"
"I don't understand."
"I mean, are you talking to me as a friend--or as a vestryman?"
"My dear boy, the vestrymen are your friends."
"Please don't quibble. There's the same dual personality in you that
there is in me talking among friends and preaching in this pulpit.
Aren't you preparing me now--as a friend--for what you might have to
say--as a vestryman?"
"If you insist--yes," the Judge admitted, rather testily. It nettled him
to be put on the defensive, his subtleness openly contemned.
"In other words," Imrie rose from his chair and walked over to the
window, where he paused for a moment. "In other words, you bear
unofficial orders."
"Not orders."
"Advice then--advice for me to preach what the people want--and let what
they need go hang?"
"Arnold--my dear boy," cried the Judge pacifically, following him to the
window. But Imrie edged away.
"As the Spanish poet put it, 'Since the public pay 'tis just, methinks,
we by their compass steer, and write the nonsense that they love to
hear';" he murmured gently.
"Really, I--" the Judge was at a loss for words. He had anticipated no
such reception as this.
Imrie's voice changed and his lips narrowed.
"You may tell the--er--powerful laymen--Judge Wolcott, that I take my
orders in these matters from my conscience, not from them."
The older man stared at him in amazement.
"Are you crazy?" he demanded, and a light flickered in his own eyes.
"Obviously," said Imrie shortly.
"Do you realise what this means?"
"Perfectly."
"Are you prepared to abide by the consequences?" That the Judge was
thoroughly aroused was plain. He did not like to have subordinates treat
him in such fashion, and any notion that Imrie was not a subordinate was
of course only a polite fiction. It was incredible that this young fool
should think it anything else.
"My resignation will be in your hands this afternoon," said Imrie
quietly.
"Come, Arnold my lad," cried the Judge, honestly dismayed by the course
their conversation had taken. "You mustn't be offended--really you
mustn't. Let's get together and discuss this like men. We...."
"There is nothing to discuss," said Imrie with a shortness which brooked
no further opening. "You have stated your case with perfect clearness. I
hope I have stated mine equally so. I think that ends it."
"My dear young friend," said the older man with an effort at patience
which only partially concealed his increasing exasperation. "I had no
intention of stirring up all this excitement. I come to you with a
friendly word of advice and you treat me like--like a policeman! Egad,
one would think I was your worst enemy."
"I'm sorry--really--I...."
"Then forget it. Come--we'll take a stroll and talk about the weather.
There's a good fellow. No sense in letting a little difference of
opinion make us lose our tempers."
But behind the Judge's conciliatory words was a secret resolve merely to
wait for a more propitious moment and then to reopen the
discussion--with a tact, of course, acquired by experience. So, after a
desultory discourse, in which he touched upon a number of obviously
unimportant matters, and during which the younger man was uniformly
silent, he renewed his circuitous attack. He tried very hard to be calm
and judicial, but Imrie's taciturn antagonism quite overthrew his poise.
And when the clergyman remained obdurate to all his subtlest questions
and cajoleries and indisputable logic, the Judge lost his temper.
"You're an obstinate ass," he almost shouted.
"There's no doubt of it," said Imrie quietly. There was of course
nothing more to be said after that, so they parted, the Judge to spread
the news of the incredible stubbornness of the clergyman, and Imrie to a
miserable walk, alone.
He was wretched, of course. He knew perfectly well what the outcome of
his folly might be. But counteracting his regret at that, was a glorious
feeling of achievement, of having conquered the devil in a pitched
battle, and of having emerged with no stain on his shield. To all the
world, _Don Quixote_, slaying windmills, was an "obstinate ass," but to
_Don Quixote_ he was a hero. Imrie's feelings, as he battled with the
wind, were a curious complex of dejection and triumph.
When he returned to his rooms, he found a message from Judith, insisting
upon his presence at supper that evening. For a little he debated the
acceptance of the invitation. He felt reluctant at facing her. He
wondered what she would think of him. He feared that she might doubt his
sincerity. But he also had a powerful curiosity as to what she would
say, and her verdict was of more importance to him than that of all the
vestries in the land. He decided to go.
She greeted him with greater enthusiasm than she had ever before
manifested toward him.
"It was wonderful, Arnold, wonderful. I never guessed it was in you. I
can't tell you how proud I was of you. It was a splendid sermon--it was
splendid courage. It was--if only I had the words...."
"You don't need words," he said softly, taking her hands into his, and
looking tenderly into her eyes.
She continued to pour oil on his troubled soul, but she withdrew her
hands, and not again did she allow herself to come so close to him. He
felt vaguely disappointed, even in the midst of her praise.
"I am so humiliated for what I said to you last week," she cried.
"It was what made--this," he said simply.
Suddenly her gaze went beyond him, and he followed it to the doorway.
His face clouded. A gust of annoyance swept him for Judith, for this
trick she had played him. It was unfair of her thus to force him to meet
a man she knew he detested. But his irritation changed to surprise, when
Good, with his long awkward stride, hurried toward him, and seized his
hand.
"Mr. Imrie," he said genuinely, "I was in your church this morning. I
want to tell you that that was one of the biggest things I ever saw. My
congratulations probably don't mean much to you, but they're yours
without a shadow of a reservation. That was the noblest sermon I ever
heard."
The man's enthusiasm was so deep and so obviously sincere that Imrie's
instinctive antipathy was banished. After all, he told himself on
reflection, his dislike for Good was based on his antagonism for the
smug hypocrisy, the senseless irreligion that he had himself attacked
only that morning. In a way they were brothers in a common cause. It was
with a very different feeling than he had expected that he accepted the
tall man's congratulations and with the utmost sincerity that he thanked
him.
Supper proved a gay function. Judith was at her happiest, and Good's
anecdotes followed one another in merry succession. Imrie found himself
insensibly warming to the man he had disliked so intensely, and rather
grateful than otherwise to Judith for having arranged so pleasant a
meeting.
But when the meal was finished and they were in the library with their
coffee, mirth seemed to leave the gathering, and a certain constraint
fell upon them all. Each of the men wanted to talk to Judith of matters
which were too intimate to share with the other. Their remarks
diminished rapidly in frequency and extent, and presently there was
complete silence. It was necessary for Judith to break it. She thought
it best to get to the heart of things immediately. She addressed herself
first to Good.
"Shall I tell him what we have done?" she asked, as if not quite sure of
herself. The tall man nodded, not very enthusiastically, it seemed to
Imrie.
"Well...." Again she hesitated. "I suppose it's best to break the news
without any preliminaries?" Good nodded his assent.
"Still, it's so _very_ surprising--however, the fact is ... we've bought
a newspaper--_The Dispatch_!"
"Yes?" Imrie refused to show any surprise at all. Obviously he thought
it was some subtle jest they were playing upon him.
"You don't understand," cried Judith, "I'm the owner of a newspaper."
"Well--what for?"
"To tell the truth," she said solemnly.
Imrie smiled indulgently. "That's praiseworthy, I'm sure," he said
ironically.
That was too much for Good. Obviously the clergyman did not understand.
He must be made to understand. His timidity slipped from him and he
plunged into an explanation of the great plans they were making.
Imrie listened attentively, and as he caught the significance of the
idea his manner changed from scepticism to something approaching
enthusiasm. Then his face slowly hardened and a semblance of a sneer
formed on his lips.
"Telling the truth may get you into trouble," he said half to himself.
"Of course," cried Good, "it not only may--it's certain to."
Imrie turned to Judith. "Are you as optimistic as Mr. Good?"
Her lips narrowed ever so slightly and a faint suggestion of a gleam
came into her eyes. Then she shrugged her shoulders and laughed lightly.
"If trouble comes--I shall be ready."
"But you're not sure that it will come?"
"I'm not experienced in such things. Were you sure of trouble when you
delivered your sermon this morning?"
"Quite."
"Did it come?"
"It did."
Imrie smiled pleasantly enough but the bitterness of his tone was not
lost on Judith.
"Arnold--what do you mean--what trouble?"
"What would you expect? I have resigned."
"The devil!" cried Good.
Judith's amazement was not feigned. It struck Imrie that it would have
been more pleasant to him had she shown less astonishment at the course
he had taken. "But it isn't final?" she cried.
"As far as I am concerned, it is. It is not at all unlikely that the
vestry will find it final too." More than ever Imrie resented the
presence of Good. He wanted to explain to Judith the part she had played
in his resolution. That made him tell the story of his interview with
Judge Wolcott very perfunctorily, and dismiss the subject as quickly as
he could.
But Good was not easily put off, although Judith seemed to sense the
purpose in his reticence. "What will you do if you resign?" he asked
bluntly.
"Not 'if,'" said Imrie coldly, "I have already resigned."
Good ignored the snub. "What'll you do next?" he persisted.
"I have no idea," said Imrie, turning away. A moment later he rose to
leave.
Good eyed him quizzically as they shook hands, and smiled, half
wistfully, half amusedly. "You don't understand me, Mr. Imrie," he said
with characteristic candour; "you don't think I understand. I'm older
than you. I have been through things. Some day--perhaps--oh, well, we'll
wait for the day, won't we?"
Imrie was puzzled. He was vaguely grateful, too, though he could find no
words to express his gratitude. He stared perplexedly at Good, who had
picked up a magazine and appeared deeply engrossed. Then he shrugged his
shoulders helplessly and turned to go.
"Some time," he said to Judith, who had followed him to the door, "I
should like to see you and tell you all about it." He looked at her
longingly as he spoke. He seemed very tired, she thought.
"I understand," said Judith. He wondered if she really did.
A cold rain had been falling steadily all evening. The street lamps
flickered dismally through the mist and the trees dripped soddenly. It
was a fitting end, he thought, to the dreariest day he had ever known.
The morning had seen the ruin of his flowering career, cut down by his
own ruthless hand, under no compulsion save that of his own senseless
conscience. And the evening, as a bitter crown to the day, had seen the
salt of jealousy ground into his wounds. The contrast between himself
standing on the brink of indecision, wandering aimlessly from disgust to
humiliation, without satisfaction in the past or hope for the future;
and that other man--who had no indecision, whose hopes were half
realised--made his heart heavy within him.
It was a saddened and chaotic Imrie who plodded on through the lonely
streets striving to regain some fragment of the philosophy which had
deserted him so utterly.