He was so startled that he took a step backward. She remained with her hand outstretched.
Was that only the result of the eloquent expression of his views—that outstretched hand which was offered to him for an instant only as a symbol of its withdrawal from him forever?
“You cannot mean——”
“Good-by,” said she.
“Have I not explained all that seemed to you to stand in need of explanation?” he asked.
“The book—the book remains. I asked for no explanation,” said she.
“But you are too good, too reasonable, to dismiss me in this fashion, Phyllis. Why, even the bishop—would sit upon a fence to see how the book would be received by the public before taking action against the author,” was what was in his mind, but he stopped short, and then added a phrase that had no reference to the bishop. “Can you ever have loved me?” was the phrase which he thought should appeal to her more forcibly than any reference to the bishop’s sense of what was opportune.
She took back her hand, and her eyes fell at the same moment that her face flushed.
He felt that he had not been astray in his estimate of the controversial value—in the eyes of a girl, of course—of the appeal which he made to her. A girl understands nothing of the soundness of an argument on a Biblical question (or any other), he thought; but she understands an appeal made to her by a man whom she had loved, and whom she therefore loves still, though something may have occurred to make her think otherwise.
“Can you ever have loved me?” he said again, and his voice was now more reproachful.
There was a pause before she said:
“That is the question which I have been asking myself for some time—ever since I read about that book. Oh, please, Mr. Holland, do not stay any longer! Cannot you see that if, after you have made an explanation that should satisfy any reasonable person, I still remain in my original way of thinking, I am not the woman who should be your wife?”
“You would see with my eyes if you were my wife,” he said, and he believed that she would, so large an amount of confidence had he in his own power to dominate a woman.
“Ah!” she said, “you have provided me with the strongest reason why I should never become your wife, Mr. Holland.”
“Do not say that, Phyllis!” he cried, in a low voice, almost a piteous voice. “I must have you with me in this great work which I feel has been given me to accomplish. I am prepared to make any sacrifice for the cause which I have at heart—the cause to which I mean to devote the rest of my life; but you—you—I must have you with me, Phyllis. Don’t give me an answer now. All I ask of you is to think over the whole matter from the standpoint of one who loves the truth, and who does not fear the result of those who are investigators. A few years ago the geologists were regarded as the enemies of the faith. Later the evolutionists were looked on with abhorrence. Had any clergyman ventured to assent to that doctrine which we now know to be the everlasting truth of the scheme of earthly life propounded by the Creator, he would have been compelled to leave the Church. I do not know what will happen to me, my Phyllis. No, no! do not say anything to me now. All that I ask of you is to think—think—think.”
“That is it—that is your modern scientific spirit!” she cried. “You, and such as you, say ‘think—think—think’ to us—to poor women and men who are asking for comfort, for protection against the evil of the world. You say ‘think—think—think,’ when you should say pray—pray—pray.’ Where are you going to end? you have begun by taking from us our Bible. What do you propose to give us in exchange for it? No—no, don’t answer me. I did not mean to enter into the question with you—to enter into any question with you. I have no right to do so.”
“You have every right, Phyllis. If I should cause offence to the least of the little ones of the flock with which I have been intrusted, it would be better that a millstone were hanged round my neck and that I were cast into the sea. You have a right to ask and it is laid on me to answer.”
“Then I decline to avail myself of the privilege; I will ask you nothing, except to say good-by.”
“I will not say it, Phyllis, and I will not hear you say it. Three months ago you told me that you loved me.”
“And I fancied that I did, but now——”
“Ah! you think that you have the power to cease loving at a moment’s notice? You will find out your mistake, my child. In love there are no good-bys. I take your hand now, but not to say good-by; I feel that you are still mine—that you will be mine more than ever when you think—think—and pray.”
“Ah! You ask me to pray?”
“Pray—pray for me, child. I need the prayers of such as you, for I feel that my hour of deepest trial is drawing nigh. Do you fancy that I am the man to take back anything that I have written? Look at me, Phyllis; I tell you here that I will stand by everything that I have written. Whatever comes of it, the book remains. Even if I lose all that I have worked for,—even if I lose you,—I will still say ‘the book remains.’ I am ready to suffer for it. I say in all humility that I believe God will give me grace to die for it.”
She had given him her hand. He was still holding it when he spoke his final sentence, looking, not into her face, but into a space beyond it. His eyes more than suggested the eyes of a martyr waiting undaunted for the lighting of the fagots. Suddenly he dropped her hand. He looked for a moment into her face. He saw that the tears were upon it. He turned and walked out of the room without a word.
No word came from her.
He knew that he had left her at exactly the right moment. She was undoubtedly annoyed by the publication of the book; but that was because she had read some reviews of it, and was, girl-like, under the impression that the murmur of the reviewers was the mighty voice that echoes round the world. He felt that she would think differently when his real persecution began. He looked forward with great hope to the result of his real persecution. She would never hold out against that. If the bishop would only take action at once and attempt to deprive him of his pastorate, there was nothing that he might not look for.
And then he reflected that on the following Sunday the church would be crowded to the doors. She would see that. She would see the thousands of the fashionable women—he hoped even for men—who would fill every available seat, every available standing place in the church, and who would all be anxious to hear his defense. That would show her that the publication of this book had raised him far above the heads of the ordinary clergyman who droned away, Sunday after Sunday, in half empty churches to congregations that never became interested. Yes, for many Sundays St. Chad’s would be crowded to the doors. And then he trusted that the bishop would take action against him, and in proportion to the severity of his persecution on the one hand would be his popularity on the other hand.
All this would, he felt, advance the cause which he had at heart; for he was thoroughly sincere in his belief that the views which he advocated in “Revised Versions” were calculated to place the Church on a firmer basis, and to cause it to appeal to those persons who, having been inculcated with the spirit of modern scientific inquiry, never entered a church porch.
He had not been guilty of an empty boast when he had expressed to her his readiness to die for the principles which he had enunciated with considerable clearness in his book; but, at the same time, when he was walking down Piccadilly he could not avoid the feeling that if he were only subjected to a vigorous persecution—a high-class persecution, of course, with the bishop at the head of it, he would be almost certain to win back Phyllis. Her desertion of him was undoubtedly a blow to him; but he thought that, after all, it was not unnatural that such as girl as she should be somewhat frightened at the boldness of the book which he had published. He had seen the day, not so very long ago, when he would have been frightened at it himself. At any rate he felt sure that Phyllis would be able to differentiate between the case of the author of “Revised Versions” and the case of the mediocre clergyman who defied his bishop on a question of—what was the question?—something concerning the twirling of his thumbs from east to west, instead of from west to east; yes, or an equally trivial matter. He trusted that she was too discriminating a girl to bracket him with that wretched, shallow-minded person who endeavored to pose as a martyr, because he would not be permitted to do whatever he tried to insist on doing. Mr. Holland thought it had something to say to the twirling of his thumbs at a certain part of the service for the day, but if anyone had said that his memory was at fault—that the contumacious curate only wanted to make some gestures at the psychological, or, perhaps, the spiritual, moment, he would not have been surprised. He had always thought that curate a very silly person. He thanked his God that he was not such a man, and he thought that he might trust Phyllis to understand the difference between the position which he assumed and the posturing of the silly curate.
His knowledge of her powers of discrimination was not at fault. Phyllis never for a moment thought of him as posturing. She did him more than justice. She regarded him as terribly in earnest; no man unless one who was terribly in earnest could have written that book—a book which she felt was bound to alienate from him all the people who had previously honored him and delighted to listen to his preaching. Someone had said in her hearing that the preaching of George Holland was, compared to the preaching of the average clergyman, as the electric light is to the gas—the gas of a street lamp. She had flushed with pleasure,—that had been six months ago,—when it first occurred to her that to be the wife of a distinguished clergyman, who was also a scholar, was the highest vocation to which a woman could aspire. She had told her father of this testimony to the ability of the rector of St. Chad’s—pride had been in her voice and eyes.
“The man who said that was a true critic,” her father had remarked. “Electric light? Quite so. In the absence of sunlight the electric light does extremely well for the requirements of the average man and woman. Your critic said nothing about volts?”
That was how her father became irritating to her occasionally—leading up to some phrase which he had in his collection of bric-a-brac. “Volts!”
Yes, she felt that the sincerity of George Holland would alienate from him all the people who had previously held him in high esteem. Although she was a daughter of Philistia, it had never occurred to her that there is such a thing as asucces scandale, and that the effect of such an incident in connection with the rector of a fashionable church rarely leads to his isolation.
She did George Holland more than justice, for she could not conceive his looking forward to a crowded and interested attendance at his church on the following Sunday and perhaps many successive Sundays. She could not conceive his thinking what effect the noticing of such an attendance would have upon her. To her, as to most girls, the heroic man is all heroic. The picture of the Duke of Marlborough taking a list of the linen to be sent to the wash while his troops were getting into position for a great battle is one from which they turn away. She could not think of George Holland’s calculating upon the effect of a crowded church, with newspaper reporters scattered throughout the building, taking down every word that might fall from his lips. She regarded him as a man who had been compelled, by the insidious influence of what he called scientific thought, to write a shocking book; but one that he certainly believed was destined to effect a great reform in the world. Her eyes had filled with tears as he stood before her with the gleam of martyrdom in his eyes, and for an instant she felt a woman’s impulse—that was a factor which George Holland had taken into consideration before he had spoken—to give both her hands to him and to promise to stand by his side in his hour of trial. But she thought of Ruth and restrained herself. Before he had reached the door she thought of him as the man from whom she had managed to escape before it was too late.
She wondered if any of those young women of the church, who had gone back to their butterfly garments on hearing that Mr. Holland had asked her to marry him, would hunt out the sober garments which they had discarded and wear them when they would hear that she was not going to marry Mr. Holland.
She rather thought that they would get new dresses and hats of the right degree of sobriety. Fashions change so quickly between February and May.
And then there was the question of sleeves!
Anyhow they would, she felt, regard themselves as having another chance. That was how they would put it.
Only for an instant did she become thoughtful. Then she sprang to her feet from the sofa on which she had thrown herself when her tears were threatening, and cried:
“Let them have him—let them all have him—all—all!”
That would have been absurd.
IF A GIRL REALLY LOVES A MAN SHE WILL MARRY HIM, EVEN THOUGH HE SHOULD WRITE A BOOK.
Phyllis meant the half hour which would elapse before her tea was brought to her to be a very grateful space. She meant to dwell upon the achievement of her freedom, for the feeling that she was free was very sweet to her. The fetters that had bound her had been flung away, and she now only had a splendid sense of freedom. So sweet was this sense that she made up her mind that in future it would never do for her to run any such risk as that to which she had just subjected herself. How could she ever have been such a fool as to promise to marry George Holland? That was what she was asking herself as she lay back on the pillows of the French sofa, and listened to the soft sound of the carriage wheels of the callers at the other houses in the square.
What a singular wish that was of hers—to become the wife of a clergyman! It seemed very singular to her just now. Just now she did not want to become the wife of anyone, and she hoped that no one would ask her. She did not want the worry of it. Ah, she would be very careful in the future: she would take very good care that the fact of other girls wanting to marry one particular man would not make her anxious to have him all to herself.
Before her resolutions on this very important point had been fully considered in all their bearings, her maid entered to ask if she was at home. The butler had sent a footman to her to make that inquiry, the fact being that her particular friend, Mrs. Linton, had called to see her.
Phyllis jumped up, saying:
“Of course I am home to Mrs. Linton. She will have tea with me.”
She went to a glass to see if the tears which had been in her eyes—they had not fallen—had left any traces that the acuteness of Ella Linton might detect. The result of her observation was satisfactory; she would not even need to sit with her back to the light.
Then Mrs. Linton was announced, and flowed into the arms of her friend Phyllis, crying:
“Of course I knew that you would be at home to me, my beloved, even though you might be in the midst of one of those brilliant speeches which you write out for your father to deliver in the House and cause people to fancy that he is the wittiest man in place—so unlike that dreadful teetotal man who grins through the horse collar and thinks that people are imposed on. Now let me look at you, you lucky girl! You are a lucky girl, you know.”
“Yes,” said Phyllis, “you have called on me. We shall have tea in a minute. How good of you to come to me the first day you arrived in town! How well you are looking, my Ella!”
“So glad you think so,” said Ella. “I haven’t aged much during the eight months we have been apart. I have had a very good time on the whole, and so had Stephen, though he was with me for close upon a month, poor little man! But it is you, Phyllis, it is you who are the girl of the hour. Heavens! you were farsighted! Who could have imagined that he would become so famous all in a moment? I must confess that when you wrote to me that letter telling me of your engagement, and how happy you were, I was a little cross. I could not clearly see you the wife of a parson, even so presentable a parson as Mr. Holland. Oh, of course I wrote you the usual exuberant letter—what would be the good of doing anything else? But now that he has become famous—Oh, I want you to bring him with you to my first At Home—Tuesday week. It’s very short notice, I know, but you must come, and bring him. You are both certain to be in great demand. Why do you shake your head that way? You need not say that you are engaged for Tuesday week.”
“I will not say that I am engaged at all, in any sense,” said Phyllis, with a very shallow laugh, at laugh that sounded like a ripple among pebbles; her usual laugh was like a ripple upon a silver sand.
“In any sense—for Tuesday week?”
Ella raised her eyebrows to the extent of the eighth of an inch. She lowered them in a moment, however, for the tea was being brought in. It required two able-bodied men (in plush) to carry in a dainty little silver tray, with a little silver tea-pot of a pattern that silversmiths, for reasons which have never been fully explained, call “Queen Anne.” One of the men, however, devoted himself to the care of the hot cakes of various subtle types which were inclosed in silver covered dishes.
With the lowering of her eyebrows Mrs. Linton’s voice lost its previous inflection.
“I have been fortunate enough to hit upon something distinctly new in that way”—she indicated the muffin dishes. “A cake that may be eaten hot without removing one’s gloves.”
“What a boon!” cried Phyllis. “You got it at Vienna, of course.”
“Of course. You will learn all about it when you come.”
The able-bodied men withdrew, and before the door was quite closed behind them, Ella was gazing at her friend, her face alight with inquiry.
“Now pray explain yourself,” she whispered. “Not engaged in any sense—those were your words. What do they mean?”
“Take them literally, my Ella,” said Phyllis.
“Literally? But you wrote to me that you had engaged yourself to marry Mr. Holland?”
“And now I tell you by word of mouth that I have disengaged myself.”
“Good Heavens! You, I fancied, would be the last girl in the world to promise to marry a man and then back out of it.”
“That was what I myself fancied up till Monday last.”
“But how can you have changed your mind? Isn’t it very unfortunate—just when the man has become famous?”
“How could it be otherwise, Ella, when the man wrote so horrible a book as that?”
“Horrible? Is it horrible? I had no idea. I’m no judge of what is horrible in theology, or metaphysics, or whatever it is. But I do profess to know when a man has made a hit, whether in theology or anything else; and I perceive quite clearly that your Mr. Holland—well, not your Mr. Holland, has made a distinct hit. What sort of face is that you’re making at me? Oh, I see. It’s the face of the orthodox at the mention of something not quite orthodox. Pshut! don’t be a goose, Phyllis.”
“I don’t intend. Have I not told you that I’m not going to marry Mr. Holland?”
“That is like one of the phrases which you give to your father, so that the people might think him clever. Orthodox! Who cares nowadays for what is dully orthodox? Who ever heard of a hero in orthodoxy nowadays? The thing is impossible. There may be, of course, thousands of orthodox heroes, but one never hears anything of them. The planets Jupiter and Saturn and Mercury and Mars and the rest of them come and go at their appointed seasons, and no one ever gives them a second thought, poor old respectable things! but the moment a comet appears in the sky everyone rushes out to gaze at it, and the newspapers deal with it from day to day, and the illustrated papers give its portrait. Nothing could be more unorthodox than your comet. Oh, Phyllis, my child, don’t talk nowadays of orthodoxy or the other—what do they call it?—heterodoxy. Mr. Holland’s name will be in everyone’s mouth for the next year at least, and if his bishop or a friendly church warden prosecutes him, and the thing is worked up properly, he ought to be before the public for the next five years.”
“Oh, Ella!”
“I’m not overstating the case, I assure you, my dear. A man was telling me about one Colenso—he was, so far as I could gather, a first-class man at algebra and heresy and things like that. He was Bishop of Zanzibar or Uganda or some place, and he wrote a book about Moses—showing that Moses couldn’t have written something or other. Well, he took a bit of prosecuting, five or six years, I believe, and he didn’t go nearly so far as Mr. Holland does in that book of his. All this time people talked about little else but Colenso, and his books made him a fortune. That was before our time, dear—when the newspapers weren’t worked as they are now. Block printing has made more heroes than the longest campaign on record. Yes, Mr. Courtland said so two days ago. I think I’ll try some more of that lovely cake: it’s like warm ice, isn’t it? Oh, you’ll not be so foolish as to throw over your Mr. Holland.”
“It is already done,” said Phyllis. “I’m so glad that you like the cake. It is very subtle. What a delightful idea—warm ice!”
“Never mind the cake. I want to hear more of this matter of Mr. Holland,” said Ella. “Do you mean to tell me plainly that you threw over Mr. Holland because he wrote a book that will bring him fame and fortune?”
“I have thrown over Mr. Holland because he has written a book to make people have contempt for the Bible,” said Phyllis.
“Then all I can say is that you were never in love with the man,” cried Ella.
“You may say that if you please.”
“I do say it. If a girl really loves a man, she will marry him even though he should write a book against Darwin. If a girl really loves a man she will stand by him all the closer when he is undergoing a course of honorable persecution, with his portrait in every paper that one picks up.”
“I dare say that is true enough,” assented Phyllis. “Perhaps I never did really love Mr. Holland. Perhaps I only fancied I cared for him because I saw that so many other girls—took to wearing chocolates and grays and kept their sleeves down just when sleeves were highest.”
“Of course it was only natural that you should wish to—well, colloquially, to wipe the eyes of the other girls. How many girls, I should like to know, begin to think of a man as a possible husband until they perceive that the thoughts of other girls are turned in his direction?”
“At any rate, whatever I may have done long ago—”
“Three months ago.”
“Three months ago. Whatever I may have done then, I know that I don’t love him now.”
“Don’t be too sure, my dear Phyllis. If there is one thing more than another about which a woman should never be positive, it is whether or not she loves a particular man. What mistakes they make! No, I’ll never believe that you turned him adrift simply because he wrote something disparagingly about Solomon, or was it David? And I did so want you and him for my next day; I meant it to be such acoup, to have returned to town only a week and yet to have the most outrageously unorthodox parson at my house. Ah, that would indeed have been acoup! Never mind, I can at least have the beautiful girl who, though devoted to the unorthodox parson, threw him over on account of his unorthodoxy.”
“Yes, you are certain of me—that is, if you think I should—if it wouldn’t seem a little——”
“What nonsense, Phyllis! Where have you been living for the past twenty-three years that you should get such a funny notion into your head? Do you think that girls nowadays absent themselves from felicity awhile when they find it necessary to become—well, disengaged—yes, or divorced, for that matter?”
“I really can’t recollect any case of—”
“Of course you can’t. They don’t exist. The proper thing for a women to do when she gets a divorce is to take a box at a theatre and give the audience a chance of recognizing her from her portraits that have already appeared in the illustrated papers. The block printing has done that too. There’s not a theatre manager in London who wouldn’t give his best box to a woman who has come straight from the divorce court. The managers recognize the fact that she is in the same line as themselves. But for you, my dear Phyllis—oh, you will never do him the injustice to keep your throwing over of him a secret.”
“Injustice? Oh, Ella!”
“I say injustice. Good gracious, child! cannot you see that if it becomes known that the girl who had promised to marry him has broken off her engagement to him simply because he has written that book, the interest that attaches to him on account of his unorthodoxy will be immeasurably increased?”
“I will not do him the injustice of fancying for a moment that he would be gratified on this account. Whatever he may be, Ella, he is at least sincere and single-minded in his aims.”
“I have no doubt of it, my only joy. But however sincere a man may be in his aims, he still cannot reasonably object to the distinction that is thrust upon him when he has done something out of the common. The men who make books know that that sort of thing pays. Someone told me the other day—I believe it was Herbert Courtland—that it is the men who write books embodying a great and noble aim who make the closest bargains with their publishers. I heard of a great and good clergyman the other day who wrote a Life of Christ, and then complained in the papers of his publishers having only given him a miserable percentage on the profits. That is how they talk nowadays; the profit resulting from the Life of Christ is to be measured in pounds, shillings, and pence.”
“Mr. Holland is not a man of this stamp, Ella.”
“I’m sure he is not. At the same time if he isn’t prosecuted for heterodoxy no one will be more disappointed than Mr. Holland, unless, indeed, it be Mr. Holland’s publisher. Who would begrudge the martyr his halo, dear? Even the most sincere and single-minded martyr has an eye on that halo. The halo of the up-to-date martyr is made up of afternoon teas provided by fair women, and full-page portraits in the illustrated papers.”
“And all this leads to—what?”
“It leads to—let me see—oh, yes, it leads to your appearance at my little gathering. Of course, you’ll come. Believe me, you’ll not feel the least uncomfortable. You will be The Girl who Sacrificed her Love for Conscience’ Sake. That’s a good enough qualification for distinction on the part of any girl in these hard times. But I might have known long ago that you would play this part. That sweetly pathetic voice, with that firm mouth and those lovely soft gray eyes that would seem to a casual observer to neutralize the firmness of the mouth. Oh, yes, my Phyllis, you have undoubtedlyla physionomie du role.”
“Whatrole?”
“Theroleof the girl who is on the side of the Bible.”
“I am certainly on the side of the Bible.”
“And so am I. So I will look for you to be by my side on Tuesday week, and as often as you please in the meantime. By the way, you will probably meet Herbert Courtland at our house. He is the New Guinea man, you know.”
“Of course I know. You talk of wanting heroes in orthodoxy at your house, while you have Mr. Courtland, the New Guinea explorer, drinking his tea at your elbow? Oh, go away!”
“I hope you will like him. We saw a good deal of him in Italy, and will probably see a good deal of him here.”
“I’m certain to like him: you like him.”
“Ah, that’s what you said to the young women who put off their colors and took to sackcloth in the presence of Mr. Holland. Don’t be too sure that you will like any man because other women like him. Now, I have, as usual, remained too long with you. I’m greatly impressed with the situation of the moment. I don’t say that I think you are wrong, mind you. Girls should always be on the side of the Bible. At any rate you have, I repeat,la physionomie du role, and you can’t be far astray if you act up to it. Good-bye, my dearest.”
Ella Linton drove to a certain shop not far from Piccadilly,—the only shop where the arranging of feathers is treated as a science independent of the freaks of fashion,—and at the door she met a tall man with the complexion of mahogany but with fair hair and mustache. People nudged one another and whispered his name as they walked past him before standing at the shop window, pretending to admire the feathers, but in reality to glance furtively round at the man.
The name that they whispered to one another after the nudge was Herbert Courtland.
He took off his hat—it was a tall silk one, but no one who knew anything could avoid feeling that it should have been a solar toupee—when Mrs. Linton stepped from her victoria.
“Oh, you here!” said she. “Who on earth would expect to see you here?”
“You,” said he.
“What?”
“You asked me a question. I answered it.”
She laughed as they walked together to the door of the feather shop.
“It appears to me that you have a very good opinion of yourself and a very bad one of me,” she remarked, smiling up to his face.
“That’s just where you make a mistake,” said he.
“How?”
“If I did not think well of you I should not have ordered Parkinson to make you a fan of the tail of the meteor.”
“Oh, Bertie, you have done that?”
“Why should I not do it?”
“But it is the only one in the world.”
“Ah, that’s just it. You are the only one in the world.”
She laughed again, looking up to his face.
“Well, we’ll have a look at it, anyway,” said she.
They went into the shop to see the tail feathers of that wonderful meteor-bird which Herbert Courtland had just brought back from New Guinea with him—the most glorious thing that nature had produced and a great explorer had risked his life to acquire, in order that Mrs. Linton might have a unique feathered fan.
About the same time the Rev. George Holland met in the same thoroughfare his friend and patron, the Earl of Earlscourt.
“By the Lord Harry, you’ve done for yourself now, my hearty!” cried the earl. “What the blazes do you mean by attacking the Word of God in that fashion?”
“Tommy,” said the Rev. George Holland, smiling a patronizing smile at his patron, “Tommy, my friend, if you take my advice you’ll not meddle with what doesn’t concern you. You’re a peer; better leave the Word of God to me. I’m not a peer, but a parson.”
“I’ll not leave it with you; it isn’t safe,” said the peer. “Anything more damnably atheistical than that book of yours I never read.”
“And you didn’t read it, Thomas; you know you only read a screeching review of it, and you didn’t even read that through,” said the parson.
“Who told you that?” asked the patron. “Well, at any rate I read what you said about Ruth. It was quite scandalous! Ruth! Good Lord! what character is safe nowadays? One of the loveliest of the women of the Bible—my wife says so. She knows all about them. And the best painters in the world have shown her standing among the field of oats. By the Lord, sir, it’s sheer blasphemy! and worse than that, it’s making people—good, religious people, mind, not the ruck—it’s making them ask why the blazes I gave you the living. It’s a fact.”
“I’m sorry for you, Tommy—very sorry. I’m also sorry for your good religious people, and particularly sorry for the phraseology of their earnest inquiries on what I am sure is a matter of life and death to them—spiritually. That’s my last word, Thomas.”
“And you were doing so well at the Joss-house, too.” Lord Earlscourt was shaking his head sorrowfully, as he spoke. “We were all getting on so comfortably. That was what people said to me—they said——”
“Pardon me, I’m a parson, therefore I’m not particular; but I can’t stand the way your good religious people express themselves.”
“They said, ‘It’s so d—— pleasant to get hold of a parson who can be trusted in the pulpit—sermons with a good healthy moral tone, and so forth. You might bring your youngest daughter to St. Chad’s in the certainty that she would hear nothing that would make her ask uncomfortable questions when she got home.’ It’s a fact, they said that; and now you go and spoil all. The bishop will have a word to say to you some of these days, my lad. He ran away to the Continent, they tell me, when your book was published, and it’s perfectly well known that he never runs away unless things look serious. When the bishop is serious, those that can’t swim had best take to the boats.”
“I’ll ask you for a seat in your yacht, Tommy. Meantime kindest regards to her ladyship.”
“Oh! by the way, it’s not true, is it, that the girl has thrown you over on account of the book?”
For an instant there came a little flush to the face of the Rev. George Holland; then he shifted his umbrella from one hand to the other, saying:
“If you mean Phyllis, all I can say in reply is that she is the best and the truest girl alive at present. I’ve an engagement at a quarter-past six.”
“Well, good-by. It was my missus who said that the girl would throw you over on account of that book.”
“Ah! Good-by.”
“Honestly speaking, George, old man, I think you’ve made a mistake this time. People don’t mind much about Jacob and Jonah and Jeremiah and the whole job lot of Sheenies; but they do mind about Ruth. Hang it all man! she was a woman.”
“Ah! so was Jezebel, and yet—ah! good-by. I’ll be late for my appointment.”
“See you on Sunday,” said the earl, with a broadish smile.
And so he did.
So did the largest congregation that had ever assembled within the venerable walls of St. Chad’s. They heard him also, and so did the dozen reporters of the morning papers who were present—some to describe, with the subtle facetiousness of the newspaper reporter, the amusing occurrences incidental to the church service of the day, and others to take down his sermon to the extent of half a column to be headed “The Rev. George Holland Defends Himself.” One reporter, however, earned an increase in his salary by making his headline, “The Defense of Holland.” It was supposed that casual readers would fancy that the kingdom of Holland had been repelling an invader, and would not find out their mistake until they had read half through the sermon.
George Holland had not been mistaken when he had assumed that his appearance in the church and his sermon this day would attract a large amount of attention. As a matter of fact the building was crowded with notable persons: Cabinet ministers (2), judges of the superior courts (4), company promoters (47), actors and actresses (3), music hall and variety artists (22), Royal Academician (1). Literature was represented by a lady who had written a high-church novel, and fashion by the publisher who had produced it. Science appeared in the person of a professional thought-reader (female). These were all strangers to St. Chad’s, though some of them could follow the service quite easily. The habitues of the church included several peers, the members of a foreign embassy, a few outside brokers, quite a number of retired officers of both services, and some Members of Parliament and the London County Council.
One of the chaplains of the bishop occupied a seat in the aisle; according to the facetious newspaper he held a watching brief.
The rector was, of course, oblivious of his brilliant entourage. He could not even tell if Phyllis or her father were present. (As a matter of fact both were in their accustomed seats in their own pew.) He, as usual, took but a small part in the ritual—as Lord Earlscourt once remarked, George Holland wasn’t such a fool as to keep a dog and do the barking himself. (It has already been stated that he had a couple of excellent curates.) But the sermon was preached by himself, as indeed it usually was after the morning service.
It was the most brilliant of all his efforts. He took as his text the words, “All Scripture is given by inspiration and is profitable,” and he had no difficulty in showing how vast was the profit to be derived from a consideration of every portion of the sacred volume, it appeared to him, than the account given of the early history of the Hebrew race. That account appealed as an object lesson to all nations on the face of the earth. It allowed every people to see the course which the children of Israel had pursued at various periods of their existence and to profit by such observation. The Hebrews were a terrible example to all the world. If they were slaves when in the land of Egypt, that was their own fault. Milton had magnificently expressed the origin of slavery:
“He that hath light within his own clear breast May walk i’ the noontide and enjoy bright day, But he that hides dark deeds and foul thoughts. . . . Himself is his own dungeon.”
The bondage of Egypt was, he believed, self-imposed. There is no account available, he said, of the enslavement of the Children of Israel by the Egyptians, but a careful consideration of the history of various peoples shows beyond the possibility of a mistake being made, that only those become enslaved who are best fitted for enslavement. A king arose that knew not Joseph—a king who could not believe that at any time there was belonging to that race of strangers a man of supreme intelligence. The Israelites bowed their heads to the yoke of the superior race, the Egyptians, and took their rightful place as slaves. After many days a man of extraordinary intelligence appeared in the person of Moses. A patriot of patriots, he gave the race their God—they seemed to have lived in a perfectly Godless condition in Egypt; and their theology had to be constructed for them by their leader, as well as their laws: the laws for the desert wanderers, and a decalogue for all humanity. He was equal to any emergency, and he had no scruples. He almost succeeded in making a great nation out of a horde of superstitious robbers. Had he succeeded the record would have thrown civilization back a thousand years. Happy it was for the world that the triumph of crime was brief. The cement of bloodshed that kept the kingdom of Israel together for a time soon dissolved. Captivity followed captivity. For a thousand years no improvement whatever took place in the condition of the people—they had no arts; they lived in mud huts at a period when architecture reached a higher level than it had ever attained to previously. When the patriot prophets arose, endeavoring to reform them with words of fire—the sacred fire of truth—they killed them. One chance remained to them. They were offered a religion that would have purified them, in place of the superstition that had demoralized them, and they cried with one voice, as everyone who had known their history and their social characteristics knew they would cry, “Not this Man, but Barabbas.” That was from the earliest period in the history of the race the watchword of the Hebrews. Not the man, but the robber. All that is good and noble and true in manhood—the mercy, the compassion, the self-sacrifice that are comprised in true manhood—they cast beneath their feet, they spat upon, they crucified; but all of the Barabbas in man they embraced. Thus are they become a hissing in the earth, and properly so; for those who hiss at the spirit which has always animated Judaism show that they abhor a thing that is abhorrent. “All Scripture is profitable,” continued the preacher, “and practically all that is referred to in the text is an indictment of Judaism. The more earnestly we hold to this truth the greater will be the profit accruing to us from a consideration of the Scripture. But what more terrible indictment of the Hebrew systems could we have than that which is afforded us in the record that the father of the race had twelve sons? He had. But where are ten of them now? Swept out of existence without leaving a single record of their destruction even to their two surviving brethren.” He concluded his sermon by stating that he hoped it would be clearly understood that he recognized the fact that in England those members of the Hebrew community who had adopted the methods, the principles, the truths of Christianity even though they still maintained their ancient form of worship in their synagogues, were on a line with civilization. They searched their scriptures and these scriptures had been profitable to them, inasmuch as they had been taught by those scriptures how impossible it was for that form of superstition known as Judaism to be the guide for any people on the face of the earth.