“Shut up there! The second round’s on, now.”
“Explain the difference between verbal and plenary inspiration,”
demanded the small clergyman in a small, suspicious voice.
“There! I _said_ it was High Dutch!” whispered Job Slip
triumphantly.
“Explain the difference,” repeated the small clergyman.
The candidate explained.
“Is every word of the Old and New Testament of the Scriptures
equally inspired by Almighty God?”
“Please give me your definition of inspiration,” said Bayard,
wheeling upon his questioner.
The small clergyman objected that this was the candidate’s business.
“It is one of the maxims of civil law that definitions are
dangerous,” replied Bayard with a smile. But it was no time for
smiling, and he knew it. He parried for a little in the usual
technicalities of the schools; but it was without hope or interest.
He knew now how it would all end. But he was not conscious of a
moment’s hesitation. His soul seemed elate, remote from his fate.
He looked out across the lake of faces upturned to his. He had
now grown quite pale, and the natural fairness of his skin and
delicacy of his features added to the effect of transparence which
his high face gave. The dullest eye in the audience observed, and
the coldest lip long afterwards acknowledged, the remarkable beauty
of the man. With a sudden and impressive gesture of the hand, as
if he cast the whole merciless scene away from him, he stepped
unexpectedly forward, and in a ringing voice he said:--
“Fathers and brothers of the church! I believe in God Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ his Son, our
Lord and Saviour. I believe in the sacredness and authority of the
Bible, which contains the lesson and the history of His life. I
believe in the guilt and the misery of sin, and I have spent the
best years of my youth in your institutions of sacred learning,
seeking to be taught how to teach my fellow-men to be better. I
solemnly believe in the Life Eternal, and that its happiness and
holiness are the gifts of Jesus Christ to the race; or to such of
us as prove fit survivors, capable of immortality. I do not presume
to explain how or why this is or may be so; for behold we are shown
mysteries, of which this is one. If I am permitted to guide the
people who have loved and chosen me, I expect to teach them many
truths which I do not understand. I shall teach them none which I
do not believe. Fathers and brothers, I show you my soul! Deal with
me as you will!”
He stood for a space, tall, white, still, with that look--half
angel, half human--which was peculiar to his face in moments of
exaltation. His dazzling eyes blazed for an instant upon his
tormentors, then fell upon his people and grew dim. He saw their
uplifted faces pleadingly turned to him: troubled men whom he
had been able to guide; bereaved women whom he had known how to
comfort. Oh, his people! Tears were on their cheeks. Their faces
swam before him. How dear, in those few months that he had served
them, they had grown! To stand disgraced before them, a stigma
on his Christian name forever, their faith deceived, their trust
disappointed,--his people, to be his no more!
“God!” he said in his heart. “Was there any other way?”
An instant’s darkness swept over him, and his soul staggered in it.
Then, to the fine, inner ear of the spirit the answer came:--
“In honor, between Me and thee, thou hast no other way.”
The troubled voice of the moderator now recalled him, using the
quaint phrase of elder times for such occasion made and provided:
“The Council will now be by themselves.”
In three quarters of an hour the Council returned and reported
upon the examination. Emanuel Bayard was refused ordination to the
Christian ministry by a majority of five.
Now, the savage that lurks in the gentlest assemblage of men sprang
with a war-cry upon the decorum of the crowded church. Agitated
beyond self-control, the people split into factions, and resolved
themselves into committees; they wept, they quarreled, they prayed,
and they condemned by turns. The gray-haired moderator and the
dejected Professor, themselves paler than the rejected candidate,
sought to convert the confusion into something like order
wherewith to close the exercises of that miserable day. Daring the
momentary silence which their united efforts had enforced, a thick
voice from the swaying crowd was distinctly heard.
Job Slip, who had somehow managed to take an extra drop from his
pocket bottle during the electric disturbance of the last half
hour, was staggering up the broad aisle, with the Italian and the
sober man at either elbow.
“Lemme go!” cried Job, with an air of unprecedented politeness.
“Lemme get up thar whar I ken make a speech. D---- ye, I won’t cuss
ye, for this is a meetin’-house, but I _will_ make my speech!”
“Hush, Job!” said the girl in the sailor hat. She came forward
before all the people and laid her hand upon the drunkard’s arm.
“Hush, Job, hush! You bother the minister. Come away, Job, come
away. Mari’s here, and the young one. Come along to your wife, Job
Slip!”
“I’ll join my wife when I get ready,” said Job solemnly, “for it’s
proper that I should; but I ain’t a-goin’ to stand by an’ see a man
that licked me licked out’n his rights an’ not do nothin’ for him!
No, sir! Gentlemen,” cried Job pleasantly, assuming an oratorical
attitude and facing round upon the disturbed house, “I’ll stick
up for the minister every time. It ain’t _his_ fault he was late
to meetin’. You hadn’t oughter kick him out for that, now! It’s
all along of me, gentlemen! I drink--and he--ye see--don’t. I was
threshin’ the life out’n my little boy down to Angel Alley, and
he knocked me down for’t. Fact, sir! That there little minister,
he knocked _me_ down. I’ll stand by him every round now, you bet!
_I_’ll see’t he gets his rights in his own meetin’-house!”
Half a dozen hands were at Job’s mouth; a dozen more dragged him
back. The Council sprang to their feet in horror. But Job squared
off, and eyed these venerable Christians with the moral superiority
of his condition. He pushed on towards the pulpit.
“Come on, Tony!” he cried to the Italian. “Come, Ben! You, Lena!”
He beckoned to the girl, who had shrunk back. “Tell Mari an’ Joey
to foller on! Won’t hear us, won’t they? Well, we’ll see! There
ain’t a cove of the lot of _them_ could knock me down! Jest to
save a little fellar’s bones! Gentlemen! look a’ here. Look at us.
_We’re the delegation from Angel Alley, Sir._ Now, sir, what are
you pious a-goin’ to do with _us_?”
But a white, firm hand was laid upon Job’s shoulder. Pale, shining,
frowning, Bayard stood beside him.
“Come, Job,” he said gently, “come out with me, and we will talk it
over.”
The broad aisle quickly cleared, and the rejected minister left the
church with the drunkard’s hand upon his arm. The remainder of the
delegation from Angel Alley followed quietly, and the soft, green
baize doors closed upon them.
“Say,” said Job Slip, recovering a portion of his scattered senses
in the open air,--“say, I thought you said they didn’t fight where
you was goin’?”
The drunkard’s wife stood outside. She was crying. Bayard looked at
her. He did not know what to say. Just then he felt a tug at the
tail of his coat, and small, warm fingers crept into his cold hand.
He looked down. It was the little boy.