"At any rate," says Gildas, emphatically, "ritualism is dangerous, and Meadthorpe will not be poisoned by it. Against Pendrill and his rituals, I stand firm with the principles of truth and freedom. I mean to withstand him at every point. The victory will never be his in our town while God gives me strength and power!"
Like one of that grand Puritan race from which she springs, Gildas walks into the Rehoboth Chapel Manse with shining, fearless eyes and stern face, full of earnest purpose and undaunted resolve. Gilead Haven, her father, sits at the table with head bowed over the pages of his beloved book on sermon preparations by Andrew Fuller. Two unopened letters lie beside him, and Gildas, who attends for the most part now to his correspondence, opens them with a premonition of further annoyances.
One is from the leader of the Rehoboth mothers' meeting, complaining that three of her mothers have deserted to the newly formed class at the parish church. The other is from the mother of the boy who blows the organ bellows at Rehoboth Chapel, complaining that five pounds per annum is insufficient remuneration, and hinting that it is not impossible an opening may offer for the talents of the youth in question elsewhere.
Gildas silently lays the letters on her father's book. He adjusts his spectacles, reads them through, and returns to the paragraph he is perusing and says quietly, "There seems a great awakening at the church. The new curate appears to be a man of energy and power. I hear there is to be daily service, and the church will be open always for prayer. I would it were the same at Rehoboth, but then the deacons.... Yes, Gildas, there seems the stir of new life at the parish church now. If the Master be glorified, if His kingdom triumph, we will rejoice and give thanks, my daughter. Whether by us or by them, may His work be done, and may the earth be filled with His glory."
Gildas turns silently away in bitter disappointment. Time was when her father, the minister of Rehoboth, would have thundered forth in splendid eloquence against the sacerdotal wiles that despoil his vineyard, and every weapon of his grand spiritual force would have been turned against priestly inroads; but the word Ichabod, the Glory has Departed, seems written across the old man's powers since God's finger touched his only son, and the grasses twine his grave.
In the remembrance, and in the prospect of the soul-to-soul struggles that await in Meadthorpe, the dark eyes of Gildas grow dim with quivering dews. Somehow the family dog, an old Welsh collie called Jones, knows she is in distress, and stretches his shaggy length to kiss her.
Chapter 2
An Official Visitation
BY-AND-BY Gildas persuades her father to go to the waiting tea. Jones has already, with his nose on the minister's knee, groaned and sorrowed aloud at the delay in partaking of Emery's hot teacakes, a soft delicacy dear to the heart of a collie that has known better days as to his teeth. Miss Emery herself, a staid, elderly, solemn-faced woman who is the live-in housekeeper at the manse, one of the pillars of Rehoboth Chapel, considers it quite in keeping with the popular opinion of Mr. Haven's learning that he should prefer theological study to the needs of the inner man. She notes approvingly that his finger traces the words that fix his attention, and he marks the page with a folded missionary report ere he takes his place for the evening meal.
Once conscious, however, that tea is in progress, the minister gives his earnest attention to the proper preparation of the beverage. He never lets Gildas infuse the tea. It is hers to wait deferentially while the old man steeps the exact quantity to ensure a correct result. Then the teaspoons have to be warmed, and the cups; and precisely when he gives the signal, Gildas must be ready to pour out a consummation that, in her present state of headache, she devoutly desires.
Mr. Haven led a bachelor existence up to the age of fifty, and when he then took to himself the daughter of the deceased pastor of a neighbouring chapel, a highly intelligent woman whose heart was full of reverent admiration for his preaching and his works, he could not change his personal attention to such points as heating the teaspoons.
"I will not think anything more about that curate's doings today," Gildas decides to herself. "It only makes me angry and wretched, and Father needs somebody to cheer and help him, instead of depressing him.
"Father," she says tenderly, "I'm going to make the lists for the anniversary trays tomorrow. You know it's the week after next. I expect the place will be crowded for tea. Jasper Ruthven told me on Monday that a number of people are coming over from Blencoe and Moorhanger, and I'm sure it will be a splendid meeting. We nearly know the anthems now, and we're to have a long practice tonight."
"I do not like anthems, daughter," says the minister, laying buttered toast on the cold, damp nose of the collie resting on his knee. "Have something all the people will know. Something we can all stand up and sing, and know what comes next -- and know when we've finished. You remember last Sunday I began to give out the notices, believing Miss Spencer had concluded, but she had only stopped for breath, and she commenced her part all over again."
"Of course, Father, those bars are repeated. I found the place before service in your anthem book. You weren't following, Father, or you would have seen Miss Spencer's part was in italics. That means, in our book, twice over."
"Just so, my love," he assents, resignedly, "but you won't let the congregation sit and listen all the time, will you, dear child? We must have 'When I can read,' and 'Come, let us join,' and you know we always end up the service with 'Behold the glories of the Lamb.'"
"Oh, yes," says Gildas, "it would never do to have the music all anthems. We only have two, Father. 'I will sing praises' and 'Be Thou exalted.' Everyone in the choir is talking about Miss Mundey's upper A in 'I will sing praises.' I'm certain the church choir cannot manage that."
But here she stops abruptly, reminded that she meant to forget the affairs of the church for a while; and the old minister, with his wrinkled hand on the dog's shaggy head, brightens up and says with a nod, "'Be Thou exalted.' I don't mind how many times they sing that over and over in the old place, daughter."
Presently the scene is changed. In the midst of enjoying the milk, which forms his evening refection, Jones hears a peal at the front door bell, and his ancient frame thrills with indignant barking, resentful of intruders.
"Finish your tea, Father," says Gildas. "It's only Mrs. Volly, or perhaps someone has sent a message about the choir practice."
Mrs. Volly is an aged dame from the almshouses. Although, a churchgoer by reason of her parochial position, she is a frequent visitor to the Manse to consult Mr. Haven concerning the signs and wonders of the latter days. The minister looks wistfully at his book, though conscious his views on prophecy are calculated to attract the enquiring to his residence.
But Emery enters, followed by the sound of many feet, and in her solemn way announces in a low voice of mystery, "Please, sir, the deacons."
"It isn't deacons' meeting night," exclaims Gildas to her father. She notices he looks worn and tired, and wonders, with a vague sense of disquietude, when he will make a thorough recovery from that long nervous illness that followed her brother David's death.
Gildas has known the deacons all her life, and she is a great favourite with every one of them, though Mr. Hornby shakes his head at the notion of her giving Sunday school addresses, and thinks young ladies of the present day forget the apostolic injunction: "I suffer not a woman to teach; let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection."
Mr. Hornby is tall, pale, and serious of countenance. Gildas has never yet seen him laugh, though when the debt was paid on the alterations to Rehoboth Chapel the year before last, she remembers a near approach to a smile. Mr. Hornby is suspicious of the Mutual Improvement Society at the chapel, and absents himself on principle from the young folks' musical evenings and recitations and the like. He scents danger lest Rehoboth become a centre of entertainments, and many a grave discourse has he held on the subject with the powers that be. But without Mr. Hornby, Rehoboth Chapel would scarcely seem the same. He works late on Saturday nights, be
ing a grocer in the town, but he is always at the prayer meeting preceding the service, and his tall figure is never absent from its post of conducting strangers to seats in the chapel, supplying them with hymn books, and appearing in due course with the collection plate.
Mr. Weston, who enters behind him, is a retired veterinary surgeon, and chiefly noted for his anti-Romanist tendencies. Keenly does he scent heresy in such matters as quoting a phrase or two from a Church of England prayer -- of which visiting preachers have sometimes been guilty -- and be became convinced Rehoboth was on the road to the Vatican when one of the choir from the cathedral town of Dilchester gave a solo once at a midweek evening service, and bowed low in mention of our Saviour's name. Tonight his iron-grey hair is almost on end with horror, aroused by the new curate's crusade, and he can scarcely wait while Gildas draws seats forward before he plunges into the iniquities that have reached his ears.
The third deacon, Mr. Mundey, lives in a perpetual state of admiration of his pastor, and advertises his praises and the fame of Rehoboth Chapel wherever he goes on his rounds as a draper with an outlying country connection. Mr. Mundey, as superintendent of the Chapel School, and in constant contact with the juveniles, is rounder of face and more jovial of visage than the rest. It is a creed with him that never was there such a Sunday school as at Rehoboth, or such a minister as theirs. When his neighbour, the nurseryman, talks of the Primitive Methodist preacher at Shiloh, all he has to say is, "Our man was preaching at Rehoboth before yours was born!"
Side by side with Mr. Mundey comes in the Meadthorpe auctioneer, Mr. Channing-Surtees, the oldest representative of the diaconate, looking quite venerable with his flowing white beard and spectacles of gold (a testimonial from Rehoboth). Gildas greets him with a smile. The dear old man is a father in Israel to all the young folks at the chapel. He has lived so long, and seen and known so much, that he is quite an ancient mariner in respect of persevering delivery of narrative.
There is one more deacon, Mr. Chatten, bookseller and stationer in the town; but he is not here this evening. He leaves most of the arrangements and discussions to his brethren in office. All he does is to manage the money matters of Rehoboth, and keep the balance on the right side. If you met him in the High Street with a tranquil air of serene satisfaction, you could be certain he holds within his glove a sovereign he has secured from some individual he has just visited, on behalf of the chapel incidentals or the alterations to the stove.
"We have taken you by storm, Mr. Haven," begins Mr. Weston, hurriedly, "but such dreadful things have reached our ears. After earnest consultation, and in view of the anniversary, we decided to put the matter into your hands. No time can be better for a fearless, plain-spoken protest than the anniversary occasion, when our friends of other evangelical denominations gather round us,. And we will have their indignant support, as Rehoboth denounces the snares and pitfalls the new curate is cunningly devising for the peril and condemnation of our townspeople."
"It is our opinion, Mr. Haven," says Mr. Hornby, his slow, grave manner of speech emphasizing his words, "that it would be well for you, at the approaching anniversary, to deliver a special discourse against high church rituals and delusions. You might make allusion to facts well known in Meadthorpe, that regular chapel-goers have been drawn, either by the new organ at the parish church, or by the new curate's eloquence, which is reported to be great, to attend services according to the liturgy."
"Jesuit preachers always are noted for their eloquence," says Mr. Weston eagerly, "and then they are so deceitful. The other day he actually had a hymn out of Sankey's collection. Of course, it was only to delude the people into thinking him Evangelical."
"He has taken away Willie Abbot, my best soprano," says Gildas, standing by the mantelpiece with eyes bright with wrath. She had intended leaving the room, but Mr. Mundey and Mr. Channing-Surtees nodded to her to remain. "And he's looking after the older girls in our day school, to get them confirmed in the spring."
"It is all jealousy," says Mr. Mundey. "Where can he get a congregation like we see at Rehoboth, or how can their little cramped-up Sunday school compare with ours? Think of our partitions and classrooms, and long list of successes at the Sunday school examinations! The man is envious of your successes, Mr. Haven, but he must not be permitted to steal away the lambs of our flock. Meadthorpe must be warned from the pulpit against clerical aggression."
"I remember," begins Mr. Channing-Surtees, "some fifty-five years ago, when I was about ten years old -- yes, it must have been just then, because good King George the Third--"
"The point is, Mr. Haven," says Mr. Weston, hotly, "excuse my interrupting you, friend, but I promised to be down at the brewery at eight o'clock. One of Solly's horses is ill. Although I am retired now, I agreed to have a look at it in a neighbourly way, and it would ease my mind to have this matter settled before I go. The point is, Mr. Haven, will you preach on the anniversary evening an out-and-out anti-Anglican sermon? We want no uncertain sound, but the kind of discourse you know so well how to deliver. Something that will prevent the Meadthorpe people from giving heed to what that young Anglican curate may utter. Every subterfuge to despoil our place should be exposed, and you might dwell at length on the crying evil of the whole system."
"Leave it to the minister," said Mr. Mundey. "He will know just how to put it, and every word, we know well, will drive home a nail into the underhanded attempts of Mr. Pendrill to weaken our cause. Why, Mr. Haven, the pamphlet you wrote years ago against the eastward position, and the use of incense in Anglican churches was quite an inspiration! I know most of it by heart. I was quoting it only yesterday to Hopkinson the churchwarden, across the way."
"I remember the circumstances under which that pamphlet was written," says the auctioneer. "In fact, I may be said, brethren, to have had some humble share in the production of that protest. Coming home one day from a sale of cattle at Moorhanger -- it must have been Friday, for that is market day -- I happened to notice lights in the church by the green, and thinking the skies betokened an approaching storm -- you know some years since the hurricanes in the surrounding locality were----"
"Pardon me, brother," says Mr. Hornby. "Our minister looks unwell, and we must not intrude to weary him. You will agree with me, Mr. Haven, we cannot lightly allow the church people to fix meetings the same evenings as our own, suggest that the Sacrament can only be taken properly at church, and that kind of thing. We deacons think it is time reference was made to such proceedings from the pulpit, and you will doubtless feel it your duty to protest against them at our anniversary with no uncertain sound."
"Yes, Father, do," says Gildas, pleadingly. "Mr. Pendrill has come down on Meadthorpe like a wolf on the fold, and it is most certainly unbearable that he should have things all his own way."
They are silent, awaiting the minister's reply. Mr. Channing-Surtees is inspired with a reminiscence of his childhood in Rehoboth school, when he wept outside the old squire's gates, being denied the bun and orange commemorative of the young heir's majority, because he was not a "Church school child." But with the narrative and all its attendant anecdotes trembling on his lips, he is constrained into silence by the visage of Mr. Hornby, who pauses resolutely for the pastoral reply.
Mr. Haven's wistful thoughts are with the pile of books at one end of the table, and it is doubtful if he has heard much of the conversation that has been going on. Of late it has become increasingly difficult for him to concentrate the forces of his mind, and even Gildas notices with an uneasy feeling at her heart that he is frequently absentminded and at a loss for the right word and phrase.
Sometimes the momentary hesitation in the pulpit serves but to drive home more powerfully the sentence that is presently found -- the exact word than which a better even Gildas herself (and Gildas has a degree) could scarcely select. But at times the absentmindedness is more perceptible, as now, when the sudden silence seems to bewilder him, and he is about to take to his knees, associating the gathering
with the deacons' weekly prayer meeting.
Gildas lays her hand on his arm, leans over his chair, and reminds him of the matter under debate, feeling more hotly concerned for the cause of Dissent in Meadthorpe than even Mr. Weston and his troubled colleagues. Is she to have laboured in vain, and to have spent her strength for naught? Is it to be a memory of the past that Rehoboth has a larger congregation than any church or chapel within thirty miles? Are her tireless energies in organizing, visiting, developing, supplementing her father's pastoral office, to weigh as nothing against the specious machinations of a brainless young curate? No. If only for once her father will preach as he preached of old, launching his thunders of rhetoric against Establishment and its representatives, Meadthorpe will realize the beguilements in its midst, and parents will turn a deaf ear to the wooing of the young priest, notwithstanding the parochial bounties.
"Brethren," says the old minister, falteringly, "the anniversary is many a day away yet. I cannot promise. I will think over what you wish. I will make it a matter of prayer."
"Oh, if you do that," says Mr. Weston, "you will be clearly shown that protest is not only desirable, but scriptural. This new curate has come to a peaceful country town like a root of bitterness to trouble us, and he and his teachings must be openly denounced. Rehoboth must make the country ring with its abhorrence of priestcraft and Anglicanism."
"You're wanted at the school, Miss Gildas," says Emery, appearing and conspicuously bringing out the minister's sermon case and pen and ink, as she clears the table. "It's the choir practice. Friday evening, you know." Emery emphasizes these words, for she considers every minister should be left to the sweets of solitude at the end of the week. She has doubts as to whether Sunday's sermons are yet composed, and her pastor's reputation is at stake, for the Joplins from Shiloh Chapel (new residents in Meadthorpe) are coming to hear him.
The deacons are rather in awe of Emery, who is wont, in some still, potent fashion, to shape the opinions of a large company of friends at the church meeting. They rise to leave, content with the minister's promise to pray over the matter of their visit.