THE BISHOP KNEW SOMETHING OF MAN, AND HE KNEW SOMETHING OF THE CHURCH;
HE EVEN KNEW SOMETHING OF THE BIBLE.
Her father when he came in commended her diligence. He read over those
damning extracts, punctuating them with chuckles; he would make an
example of that minister who had found it convenient to adopt a course
diametrically opposed to the principle involved in his early speeches.
He chuckled, reading the extracts while he paced the room, drawing upon
his stock of telling phrases, which were calculated to turn the derision
of the whole House of Commons upon his opponent.
Thus, being very well satisfied with himself, he was satisfied with her,
and kissed her, with a sigh.
“What a treasure you are to me, dearest one!” he said. There was a pause
before he added, in a contemplative tone:
“I suppose a clergyman has no need ever to hunt up the past deliverances
of another clergyman in order to confound him out of his own mouth. Ah,
no; I should fancy not.”
Regret was in his voice. He seemed to suggest to her that he believed
her powers would be wasted as the wife of a man who, of course, being a
clergyman, could have no enemies.
“Dearest papa!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms, and sobbing
on his shirt front, “dearest papa, I will not leave you. I don’t want to
be anyone’s wife. I want to be your daughter--only to be your daughter.”
He comforted her with kisses and soothing smoothings of the hair. No,
no, he said; he would not be selfish. He would remember that a father
was the trustee of his child’s happiness.
“But I know I can only be happy with you, my father!” she cried; but
it was of no avail. He, being a father and not a mother, was unable to
perceive what was in the girl’s heart. He considered it quite natural
that she should be a trifle hysterical in anticipating her new
life--that strange untraveled country! Ah, is there anything more
pathetic, he thought, than a girl’s anticipations of wifehood? But he
would do his duty, and he fancied that he was doing his duty when he
put aside her earnest, almost passionate protestations, and told her
how happy she would be with the man who was lucky enough to have won the
pure treasure of her love.
What could she do? The terrible doubts of that month of doubting
broadened into certainties. She knew that she did not love George
Holland; but she had not the courage to face Philistia as the girl who
did not know her own mind. Philistia was very solid on such points as
the sacredness of an engagement between a man and a woman. It was a
contract practically as abiding as marriage, in the eyes of Philistia;
and, indeed, Phyllis herself had held this belief, and had never
hesitated to express it. So nothing was left to her but to marry George
Holland. After all, he was a brilliant and distinguished man, and had
not a score of other girls wanted to marry him? Oh, she would marry him
and give up her life to the splendid duties which devolve upon the wife
of a clergyman.
But just as she had made up her mind to face her fate, Mr. Holland’s
fate induced him to publish the book at which he had been working for
some time. It came out just when the girl was becoming resigned to her
future by his side, and it attracted even more attention than the author
had hoped it would achieve.
The book was titled “Revised Versions,” and it was strikingly modern
in design and in tone. It purported to deal with several personages and
numerous episodes of the Old Testament, not from the standpoint of the
comparative philologist; not from the standpoint of the comparative
mythologist, but from the standpoint of the modern man of common sense
and average power of discrimination; and the result was that the breath
of a good many people, especially clergymen, was taken from them, and
that the Rev. George Holland became the best-known clergyman in England.
He dealt with the patriarchs in succession, and they fared very badly at
his hands. He showed that Abraham had not one good act recorded to his
credit, and contrasted his duplicity with the magnanimity of the ruler
of Egypt whom he visited. He dwelt upon the Hagar episode, showing that
the adulterer was also a murderer by intention, and so forth; while no
words could be too strong to apply to Sara, his wife. Isaac did not call
for elaborate notice. He could not be accused of any actual crime, but
if he was a man of strong personality, he was singularly unfortunate in
having failed to impart to his wife any of that integrity which he may
have practiced through life. Her methods of dealing with him after they
had lived together for a good many years were criminal, considering the
largeness of the issue at stake as the result of his blessing. As for
Jacob, not a single praiseworthy act of his long life was available to
his biographer. His career was that of the most sordid of hucksters. Of
eleven of his sons nothing good is told, but Joseph was undoubtedly an
able and exemplary man; the only thing to his discredit being his utter
callousness regarding the fate of his father, after he had attained to a
high position in Egypt.
The chapter on the patriarchs was followed by one that dealt with the
incidents of the Exodus. The writer said that he feared that even the
most indulgent critic must allow that the whole scheme of Moses was a
shocking one; but he was probably the greatest man that ever lived on
the face of the earth, if he was the leader and organizer of a band of
depredators who for bloodthirst and rapacity had no parallel in history.
How could it be expected that a kingdom founded upon the massacre of men
and cemented by the blood of women and children should survive? It
had survived only as example to the world of the impossibility of a
permanent success being founded upon the atrocious methods pursued by
the worst of the robber states of the East. While civilization had been
spreading on all sides of them, the people of Israel had remained the
worst of barbarians, murdering the men who had from time to time arisen
to try and rescue them from the abysses of criminality into which they
had fallen,--abysses of criminality and superstition,--until they
had filled their cup of crime by the murder of the One whom the world
worships to-day.
Incidentally, of course, the character of Samson was dealt with. Delilah
was shown to be one of the most heroic of womankind, making greater
sacrifices through her splendid patriotism than Joan of Arc. But
Samson----
Ruth was also dealt with incidentally. She was the woman who expresses
her willingness to give up her God at the bidding of another woman, and
who had entered into a plot with that same woman to entrap a man whom
they looked to support them.
Then there was David. It was not the Bath-sheba episode, but the
Abishag, that the author treated at length--one of the most revolting
transactions in history, especially as there is some reason to believe
that the unfortunate girl was, when it was perpetrated, already attached
to one of the sons of the loathsome, senile sensualist.
Perhaps, on the whole, it was not surprising that after the publication
of this book the Rev. George Holland became the best-known clergyman
in England, or that the breath of bishops should be taken from them. So
soon as some of them recovered from the first brunt of the shock, they
met together and held up their hands, saying that they awaited the
taking of immediate action by the prelate within whose see St. Chad’s
was situated. But that particular prelate was a man who had never been
known to err on the side of rapidity of action. Nearly a week had passed
before he made any move in the matter, and then the move he made was
in the direction of the Engadine. He crossed the Channel with the
book under his arm. He determined to read it at his leisure. Being a
clergyman, he could not, of course, be expected to have examined, from
any standpoint but that of the clergyman, the characters of the persons
dealt with in the book, and he was naturally shocked at the freedom
shown by the rector of St. Chad’s in criticising men whose names have
been held in the highest esteem for some thousands of years. He at once
perceived that the rector of St. Chad’s had been very narrow-minded
in his views regarding the conduct of the men whom he had attacked. It
occurred to him, as it had to Mr. Ayrton, that the writer had drawn his
picture without any regard for perspective. That was very foolish on the
part of a man who was a Fellow of his college, the bishop thought; and
besides, there was no need for the book--its tendency was not to
help the weaker brethren. But to assume that the book would, as some
newspaper articles said it would, furnish the most powerful argument
that had yet been brought forward in favor of the Disestablishment of
Church, was, he thought, to assume a great deal too much. The Church
that had survived Wesley, Whitefield, Colenso, Darwin, and Renan would
not succumb to George Holland. The bishop recollected how the Church had
bitterly opposed all the teaching of the men of wisdom whose names came
back to him; and how it had ended by making their teaching its own.
Would anyone venture to assert that the progress of Christianity was
dependent upon what people thought of the acceptance by David of the
therapeutic course prescribed for him? Was the morality which the Church
preached likely to be jeopardized because Ruth was a tricky young woman?
The bishop knew something of man, and he knew something of the Church,
he even knew something of the Bible; and when he came to the chapter
in “Revised Versions” that dealt with the episode of Ruth and Boaz, he
flung the book into a corner of his bedroom, exclaiming, “Puppy!”
And then there came before his eyes a vision of a field of yellow corn,
ripe for the harvest. The golden sunlight gleamed upon the golden
grain through which the half-naked brown-skinned men walked with their
sickles. The half-naked brown-skinned women followed the binders,
gleaning the ears, and among the women was the one who had said,
“Entreat me not to leave thee.” He had read that old pastoral when
he was a child at the knee of his mother. It was surely the loveliest
pastoral of the East, and its charm would be in no wise impaired because
a man who failed to appreciate the beauty of its simplicity, had almost
called Ruth by the worst name that can be applied to a woman.
The bishop did not mind what George Holland called Abraham, or Isaac, or
Jacob, or Samson, but Ruth--to say that Ruth----
The bishop said “Puppy!” once again. (He had trained himself only to
think the adjectives which laymen find appropriate to use in such a case
as was under his consideration.)
But he made up his mind to take no action whatever against the Rev.
George Holland on account of the book. If the Rev. George Holland
fancied that he was to be persecuted into popularity, the Rev. George
Holland was greatly mistaken, and the bishop had a shrewd idea that the
rector of St. Chad’s was greatly mistaken.
(It may be mentioned that he came to this determination when he had read
the book through, and found it was so cleverly written that it included
no heretical phrase in all its pages.)
But so soon as Phyllis Ayrton had read the first review of the book that
fell into her hands, she felt inexpressibly shocked. Great Heavens! Was
it possible that she was actually at that moment engaged to marry
the man who had written such a book--a book that held up Delilah to
admiration, and that abased Ruth? (It was singular how everyone settled
upon Ruth in this connection.)
She did not pause to analyze her feelings--to try and find out if she
was really so fond of Ruth as to make Ruth’s insult her own; but without
a moment’s delay, without a word of consultation with her father, she
sat down at her desk and wrote a letter to George Holland, asking him to
release her from her promise to marry him; and adding that if he should
decline to do so it would make no difference to her; she would consider
the engagement between them at an end all the same.
She felt, when that letter was posted, as if a great weight were lifted
from her mind--from her heart. Then a copy of “Revised Versions” arrived
for her from the author, and with the ink still wet upon the pen with
which she had written that letter to him, she caught up the book and
covered it with kisses.
Had he seen that action her lover would have been thoroughly satisfied.
A young woman must be very deeply in love with a man when she kisses the
cover of a book which he has just published. That is what George Holland
would have thought, having but a superficial acquaintance with the
motives that sway young women.
Later in the day he had replied to her letter, and had appointed four
o’clock on the following afternoon as the hour when he trusted she would
find it convenient to see him, in order to give him an opportunity of
making an explanation which he trusted would enable her to see that
“Revised Versions,” so far from being the dreadful book she seemed to
imagine it to be, was in reality written with a high purpose.
She had not shrunk from an interview with him. She had sent him a line
to let him know that she would be at home at four o’clock; and now she
sat in her drawing room and observed, without emotion, that in five
minutes that hour would strike.
The clock struck, and before the last tone had died away, the footman
announced the Rev. George Holland.