CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

ONE SUNDAY MORNING.

The Rector of a large West-end church was ill. His illness was not very serious, nor did it threaten to be protracted, but it fell at a bad moment. It was the middle of the season, the time at which his church was more crowded than at any other of the year. He was an earnest and thoughtful man, and one who, despite much discouragement, laboured energetically to do his best; but on the Friday evening, preceding the second Sunday in June, he was obliged to acknowledge that for some days he would be unfit to officiate in his usual place.

"What shall I do?" he said in distress. "What shall I do about the sermon on Sunday morning? The curates can manage the rest, but it will be as much as they _can_ do. I cannot ask either of them to prepare another sermon so hurriedly. And the one I had ready has cost me much time and thought--I had even built some hopes upon it. One never knows--"

"Your sermon will keep till another Sunday. That is not the question," said his wife.

"No, truly," he agreed, with some bitterness; "my sermon, as you say, will keep. Nor can I flatter myself that any one will be the loser if it never be preached at all. Do sermons ever do good, I sometimes ask myself? Yet many of us--I could almost say most of us--do our best. We spare neither time nor trouble nor prayer; but all falls on stony ground, it seems to me. And we are but human--liable to error and mistake, and but few among us have great gift of eloquence. It is easy, I know, to pick holes and criticise; but is the fault all on the side of the sermons, I wonder?"

"You misunderstood me, Reginald," said his wife gently. "No, truly; the fault must lie in great part with the hearers. All other efforts to instruct or do good are received with some amount of respect and appreciation. No popular lecturers, for instance, are listened to with such indifference or criticised so captiously as the mass of English clergy. It is the tone of the day, the fashion of the age. Though one rose from the dead--nay, if an angel from heaven came down to preach one Sunday morning," she went on with sad impressiveness, "he would be found fault with, or sneered at, or criticised, and accused of having nothing to say, or not knowing how to say it; yes, I verily believe it would be so."

Her husband smiled, though his smile was a melancholy one, at her earnestness.

"I have it," he exclaimed suddenly; "I will write to Lyle by to-night's post. He will come if he can, I am sure, and I know he only preaches occasionally where he is."

The letter was written and despatched. Mr Lyle was a young clergyman doing assistant duty temporarily at a church in the suburbs while waiting for a living promised to him. His answer came by return. He would be glad to do as his friend asked. "But I shall go straight to Saint X's on Sunday morning," he wrote. "I shall not probably be able to reach it till the last moment, as I have an early service here. Ask them to count on me for nothing but the sermon. I shall look in after the service and shall hope to find you better."

"He will be here at luncheon, then, I suppose?" said the Rector's wife-- Mildred was her name.

"Doubtless; at least you will ask him to come. You can wait to see him after the service," her husband replied. "With you there he will have _one_ attentive hearer, I can safely promise him," he added, with a smile.

"I cannot help listening, even when it is not you, Reginald," she said naively. "It seems to me only natural to do so and to try to gain _something_ at least. We cannot expect perfection in sermons surely, even less than in lesser things. And if the perfection were there, could we, imperfect as we are, recognise it?"

Sunday morning rose, bright and glowing over the great city--a real midsummer's day.

"How beautiful it must be in the country to-day!" thought Mildred, as she made her way to church; "it is beautiful even here in town. I wonder why I feel so happy to-day. It is greatly, no doubt, that Reginald is better, and the sunshine is so lovely. When I feel as I do this morning I _long_ to believe that the world is growing better, not worse, that the misery, and the ignorance, and the sins are lessening, however slowly; I feel as if I could give my life to help it on."

There was scarcely any one in the church when she entered and sat down in her accustomed place. Gradually it filled--up the aisles flecked with the brilliant colours of the painted windows, as the sunshine made its way through them, the congregation crowded in, in decorous silence. There were but few poor, few even of the the so-called working classes, for Saint X's is in a rich and fashionable neighbourhood, yet there was diversity enough and of many kinds among those now pressing in through its doors. There were old, and middle-aged, and young--from the aged lady on her son's arm, who, as she feebly moved along, said to herself that this might perhaps be her last attendance at public worship, to the little round-eyed wondering cherub coming to church for the first time. There was the anxious mother of a family, who came from a vague feeling that it was a right and respectable thing to do, though it was but seldom that she could sufficiently distract her mind from cares and calculations to take in clearly the sense of the words that fell upon her ears. There was the man of learning, who smiled indulgently at the survival of the ancient creeds and customs, while believing them doomed. There were bright and lovely young faces, whose owners, in the heyday of youth and prosperity, found it difficult to put aside for the time the thoughts of present enjoyment for graver matters. There were some in deep mourning, to whom, on the other hand, it seemed impossible that aught in life could ever cheer or interest them again.

There were men and women of many different and differing modes of thought, all assembled for the avowed purpose of praying to God and praising Him in company, and of listening to the exhortation or instruction of a man they recognised as empowered to deliver it. And among them all, how many, think you, prayed from the heart and not only with the lips? how many thrilled with solemn rejoicing as the beautiful words of adoration rose with the strains of the organ's tones? how many ever thought of the "sermon," save as a most legitimate subject for sharp criticism or indifferent contempt?

The service went on with the usual decorum. From her place Mildred could see all that passed. She noticed that the two curates were alone and unaided.

"Mr Lyle cannot yet have come," she thought nervously. "Surely nothing can have detained him?" and a slight misgiving, lest he should not have got away in time, began to assail her. But when the moment for commencing the Communion service came, the sight of a third white-surpliced figure removed all her apprehensions, and with a sigh of relief she knelt again, joining her voice to the responses. She observed that the new-comer took no active part in the service; he remained kneeling where she had first perceived him. But it seemed to her that the music and the voices had never sounded so rich and melodious, and once or twice tones caught her ears which she fancied she had not before remarked.

"I wonder if it can be Mr Lyle singing," she thought. "I do not remember if Reginald ever mentioned his having a beautiful voice."

And when the time came for the preacher to ascend the pulpit, she watched for him with increased interest. It needed but the first few syllables which fell from his lips to satisfy her that his was the voice which she had perceived; and with calm yet earnest expectancy she waited to hear what he had to say.

At the first glance he looked very young. His face was pale, and he was of a fair complexion. There was nothing in him to strike or attract a careless or superficial observer. But when the soft yet penetrating tones of his voice caught the ear, one felt constrained to bestow a closer attention on the speaker, and this, once given, was not easily withdrawn. For there was a power in his eyes, though their habitual expression was mild, such as it would be vain for me to attempt to describe--a strength and firmness in the lines of the youthful face which marked him as one not used to speak in vain.

"Is he young?" thought Mildred more than once. "It seems in some way difficult to believe it, though his features are in no way time-worn; and those wonderful eyes are as clear and candid as the eyes of a child that has scarcely yet learned to look out on to this troubled world."

And her perplexity was shared by many among the hearers.

They had settled themselves comfortably to listen or not to listen, according to their wont, as the preacher ascended the pulpit steps.

A momentary feeling of surprise--in a few cases of disappointment-- passed through the congregation on catching sight of the unfamiliar face.

"Another new curate, no doubt," thought a portly and pompous churchwarden. "And what a boy! Well, if the Rector chooses to throw away his money on three when two are quite enough for the work, it is no business of ours. Still, it would be more becoming to consult us, and not to set a beardless youth like that to teach us. I, for one, shall not irritate myself by listening to his platitudes."

And he ensconsed himself more snugly in his corner to carry out his intention. But what was there in that vibrating voice that _would_ be heard?--that so often as Mr Goldmain turned his thoughts in other directions, drew them back again like a flock of rebellious sheep, constraining him to hearken? Then his mood changed: annoyed, he knew not why, he set himself to cavil and object.

"Arrant Socialism!" he called the sermon when describing it afterwards. "Shallow, superficial, unpractical nonsense, about drawing all classes together by sympathy and charity. It sounds plausible enough, I daresay; so did many of the theories and doctrines of the first movers in the great French Revolution, I have no doubt. No, no! Let each do his duty in that station of life where God has placed him; that is _my_ interpretation of religion. Our great charitable institutions must be kept up, of course, so that the _deserving_ poor may be helped when they really need it; though even among the respectable, in nine cases out of ten, my dear sir, you may believe me, it's their own fault. But as for this dream of universal brotherhood, `of the rich mingling in the daily life of the poor, weeping with them in their sorrows, rejoicing in their joys,' it is sentimental twaddle. It would revolutionise society, it would break down all the barriers which keep the masses in their places. And to have this nonsense preached to us by a chit of a boy, it makes me lose my temper, I confess. I have not seen our worthy Rector yet, but when I do, I must tell him plainly that if he is not more careful whom he puts in his pulpit when he is absent or ill--hypochondriacal fellow he is, I fancy--I shall look out for seats in some other church than Saint X's."

Such was Mr Goldmain's impression of the sermon. For though he closed his eyes in order that those about him might think he was asleep, he did not succeed in achieving even the shortest of dozes. Nay, more, he felt as if mentally stung by nettles for the rest of the day, so irritated, and, though for worlds he would not have confessed it, ill at ease, had the strange preacher's discourse left him. But the soil of his conscience was choked with thorns; there was room for naught beside. Mr Goldmain was of this world, worldly, and such he remained.

He might have spared himself the trouble of thinking of how he appeared to those around him. They were none of them paying any attention to him. In the next seat sat some richly-clad ladies of uncertain age. They had become members of the Saint X's congregation because they had been told they would find its Rector's views in no way "extreme." For these worthy women had an exaggerated horror of everything "high," or, as they expressed it, "verging on papistry." That God could be worshipped "in spirit and in truth," in any but their own pet "evangelical" fashion, was a possibility that had not yet suggested itself to their dull brains. And they too, this Sunday morning, felt a shock of disapproval when, looking up at the sound of the vibrating voice, the fair face of the strange preacher met their gaze.

"Like a young novice, or whatever it is they call those who are going to be priests; looks as if he fasted and half-starved himself," whispered one to the other. "The Rector should be more careful. Who knows but what he is a Jesuit in disguise?" replied the third.

And at intervals during the sermon little groans or ejaculations of disapproval might have been heard from the seats of the wealthy spinsters.

"I did my best not to listen," said the eldest candidly, as they were walking home, "for I knew in a moment what it was going to be. But no doubt he had a persuasive tone and manner. Poor deluded young man--he will be over to Rome in no time! Did you hear--all that about `the Church?'--"

"The `invisible' Church, he spoke of also, I think," suggested the younger sister timidly.

"Ah, I daresay, just to hide their real meaning; but I can see through it. There was all that in favour of images, too--symbols he called them. What was it he said, Janet? You have the best memory."

"`The childlike expressions of human yearnings after the Divine, which is not for you to condemn or despise,'" quoted Janet.

"Ah, yes--all very fine. We shall be having Madonnas and rosaries and graven images in our English churches next," said the eldest sister somewhat confusedly.

"He seemed to me a conscientious young man, very much in earnest, I should have said," observed the younger sister humbly.

"Of course, they take that tone; that is the very danger of it," answered the elder lady. "I really must ask the Rector to be on his guard."

And yet by another group seated just across the aisle the stranger's sermon had been criticised in a very different fashion. By some among his hearers his views were pronounced to be, not too "high," or "leading to Rome," but dangerously "broad."

"I dislike those allusions to `evolution' and `development' in the pulpit. It is not the place for science; our preachers should keep to the Bible, and not give heed to all the talk of the day about matters which have nothing to do with religion," said an elderly gentleman dogmatically.

His companion smiled; they, too, were walking down the street. "Yes, religion or teachers of religion get rather out of their depth when they touch upon science, certainly," he said.

"But if science be true, and religion be true, _truths_ cannot disagree," said a young girl, who was walking between the two, her bright intelligent face raised to the last speaker, her brother, as he spoke. "You are a very clever and learned man, Gerald, and I am only a very young and ignorant girl, but yet I _feel_ you are wrong, and I never felt this more intensely than when listening to this stranger this morning. Why should we refuse to believe what we cannot understand? Is it not the very height of presumption, and even stupidity, to do so? I cannot remember his words, but they seemed to me to say it as I have never heard it said before. And--I hoped you felt it so, too."

But the philosopher only shook his head. The two were some paces in front of the old gentleman by now; they knew that such talk annoyed him, hedged in, in his "orthodoxy."

"I am glad if you were pleased, my dear child," said the brother; "but I must keep to my old opinion. Reality and dreams _cannot_ be reconciled. We can only know that which we have experience of. Still, I allow that he put it in rather an original way."

"You mean," said the girl, eagerly, "when he said that our refusing to believe in God and the spiritual universe, because we cannot see and touch them, is like a deaf-mute refusing to believe in music--that we complain of the things of God not being proved and explained to us before we have learned the alphabet of the spiritual language."

"That we complain of not being treated as gods before we have learned to live as men. Yes, that was rather fine," the other allowed. "But still, my dear child, I cannot see that these discussions are profitable. We have plenty to do and learn about matters as to which we _can_ arrive at certainty. Why not be content to leave those matters as to which we _know_ nothing? I don't quarrel with the clergy for trying to bring us to a different way of thinking; it is their business, and as long as there are priests, we must submit to their platitudes. But what can a young theologian, determined to see things in but one way, know of the researches of science, the true spirit of philosophy?"

The girl looked grievously disappointed, and tears filled her beautiful eyes.

"Gerald," she said, "I could not live in the negation of all belief that you advocate; still less," she went on in a lower voice, "could I die in it. Uncle thought the preacher dangerously `liberal;' _you_ think him narrow and ignorant. For me, I can only say, if I may use the words without irreverence, that my heart burned within me as I listened."

"Little enthusiast!" said her brother, smiling. Mentally he thought to himself that it would really be a pity if Agatha went too far in "that direction," and his eyes wandering across the street, caught sight of a party of young people, laughing and talking, though in well-bred fashion, as they went along. "She should be more like other girls of her age," he reflected, as his glance again fell on the thoughtful young face at his side.

"You should be pleased and flattered, Agatha," he said, "that I gave so much attention as I did to this pet preacher of yours."

"I don't know him, Gerald," she replied. "I never saw or heard him before."

"Really," he said, "I had half an idea that you had some reason for so particularly asking me to go to church this morning."

"Oh, no. I expected the Rector would be preaching himself," she said. "But I am glad you came, Gerald. You do allow that it was a remarkable sermon."

"Ye-es," he replied, smiling again, and with that Agatha was forced to be contented.

Across the street the same subject was being discussed.

"I feel quite tired," laughed one of the pretty girls to the man beside her. "Do you know, for once in my life, I really listened to the sermon?"

"You don't mean to say so," he replied. But something in his tone made her glance up at him archly.

"Why do you seem so conscious?" she said. "Were you asleep?"

"No, I scarcely think so. I was very sleepy at the beginning, it was so hot. But there was something rather impressive in that fellow's voice. To confess the truth, I caught myself listening, like you."

"If one could always listen, it would make church-going less wearisome," said the girl. "As a rule, I never attempt it; they always say the same thing."

"And there was nothing particularly new in what that pale-faced young man had to say this morning, after all," said her companion. "It was the mere accident of his having an unusually good voice."

"Yes, I suppose so," replied the young lady, indifferently, "though I've really forgotten what it was about--there are too many other things to think about when one is young and--"

"Lovely," interrupted her companion. "Yes--and for my part I don't see what we're in the world for, if it isn't to make ourselves as happy as we can. That's _my_ religion."

"A very pleasant one, if it has no other merit," the girl replied, with a laugh.

At that moment a carriage passed them. It had but one occupant--an elderly lady. Her face, though worn and even prematurely aged, was sweet and calm. Her glance fell for an instant on the upturned laughing face of the girl.

"Something in her recalls my Margaret," thought the lady; "but Margaret was more serious. How is it that they all seem to have been so near me to-day? All my dead children who have left me--I am so glad I went to church. I have not felt so near them all for years. I could almost fancy that young man knew something of my sorrows, his glance rested on me once or twice with such sympathy. How beautiful and how strengthening were his words! Yes--we are not really separated--I am content to wait while God has work for me to do here. And I am glad I am rich when I feel how many I can help. God bless that preacher, whoever he is, for the strength and comfort he has given me to-day."

Mildred in her place sat quietly waiting till the congregation had dispersed. Then she rose and went forward to speak to the verger.

"Will you tell the clergyman," she said, "Mr Lyle is his name--that I hope he will return with me to the rectory to luncheon. I will wait here till he comes out."

The man went with her message. But in a moment or two he reappeared looking somewhat surprised.

"He has gone, ma'am," he said. "I can't make out how he went off so quickly. No one seems to have seen him."

"He must have hurried off at once. No doubt I shall find him at home," she said, feeling nevertheless a little disappointed. She had looked forward to the few minutes' talk with the preacher who had so impressed her; she would have liked to thank him without delay.

"I shall feel too shy to say it to him before Reginald, I am afraid," she thought. "I am a little surprised he did not tell me more of this Mr Lyle."

And she set off eagerly to return home. At the church door she almost ran against one of the curates, an honest and hard-working, but dictatorial young man, with whom she did not feel much sympathy. He accompanied her a few steps down the street.

"And how did you like the sermon?" he said.

Mildred replied by repeating his own question, hoping thus to escape a discussion she felt sure would not be to her mind.

"How did _you_ like it, Mr Grenfell?" she asked.

He smiled in a superior way, conscious to his fingertips of his unassailable theology.

"I daresay he may come to be something of a preacher in time," he said. "But he was crude--very crude--and I should say he would do well to go through a good course of divinity. He evidently _thinks_ he knows all about it; but if I could have a talk with him I could knock his arguments to shivers, I could--"

"Mr Grenfell," said Mildred, feeling very repelled by his manner, "do you think religion is only theology of the Schools? If you could not feel the love of God, and love to man--the `enthusiasm of humanity,' if you like to call it so--breathing through Mr Lyle's every word and look and tone, I am sorry for you."

Mr Grenfell grew very red.

"I am sorry," he began, "I did not mean--I will think over what you say. Perhaps it is true that we clergy get into that way of thinking--as if religion were a branch of learning more than anything else. Thank you," and with a shake of the hand he turned away.

A step or two further on, Mildred overtook a young man--a cripple, and owing to his infirmity, in poor circumstances, though a gentleman by birth. She was passing with a kindly bow, when he stopped her.

"Might I ask the name of the clergyman who preached this morning?" he asked, raising his face, still glowing with pleasure, to hers.

"Mr Lyle," she replied; "at least," as for the first time a slight misgiving crossed her mind, "I feel almost sure that is his name."

"Thank you," the cripple said. "I am glad to know it, though it matters little. Whoever he was, I pray God to bless him, I little knew what I was going to church to hear this morning; I felt as if an angel had unawares come to speak to us."

And in the relief of this warm sympathy Mildred held out her hand.

"Thank _you_, Mr Denis, for speaking so," she said; "you are the first who seem to have felt as I did."

Then she hurried on.

She found her husband on the sofa, but looking feverish and uneasy.

"How?" he began, but she interrupted him.

"Is Mr Lyle not here?" she said.

"Mr Lyle!" Reginald repeated. "What do you mean? You had scarcely gone when a special messenger brought this from him;" and he held out a short note of excessive regret and apology from the young priest, at finding the utter impossibility of reaching Saint X's in time for the morning service. "I have been on thorns," said the Rector, "and I could do nothing. There was no one to send. Did Grenfell preach, or was there no sermon?"

Mildred sat down, feeling strangely bewildered.

"I cannot explain it," she said. "Reginald, tell me what is Mr Lyle's personal appearance? Can he have come after all? even after despatching his message? Is he slight and fair--rather tall and almost boyish-looking, but with most sweet yet keen eyes, and a wonderful voice?"

The Rector could hardly help smiling.

"Lyle," he replied, "is slight, but short, and dark--very dark, with a quick lively way of moving, and a rather thin, though clear voice. He has not a grain of music or poetry in his composition."

Nothing could be more unlike the preacher of that morning.

Mildred told her husband all she could recollect of the sermon. Its vivid impression remained; but the words had grown hazy, and curiously enough she could not recall the text. But Reginald listened with full sympathy and belief.

"I wish I could have heard it," he said. "Were the days for such blessed visitations not over, I should think." But there he hesitated.

Mildred understood, and the words of the cripple, Mr Denis--"an angel unawares"--returned to her memory.

The events I have related were never explained, nor of the many who had been present that Sunday morning at Saint X's did any ever again look upon the fair face of the mysterious stranger.

But--till the matter had passed from the minds of all but two or three-- the Rector had to listen with patience to much fault-finding with the sermon, and with its preacher.

The End.