John Marvel, Assistant Part 52

"Mr. Marvel will call at the rector's office to-morrow, Tuesday, at 11.30 promptly.

"(Signed) BARTHOLOMEW CAPON, D.D.,

"_Rector_, etc., etc."

The tone of the note struck even John Marvel and he immediately brought it over to me. We both agreed that the doctor must have read the account of the raid on Madam Snow's and of his presence there when the officers arrived, and we decided that, notwithstanding the curtness of the summons, it was due to John himself to go and make a simple statement of the matter. We felt indeed that the interview might result in awakening the living interest of Dr. Capon in the work on which we had embarked and securing the co-operation not only of himself but of the powerful organization which he represented as rector of a large church. Dr. Capon was not a difficult man; in his own way, which was the way of many others, he tried to do good. He was only a worldly man and a narrow man.

He felt that his mission was to the rich. He knew them better than the poor and liked them better. The poor had so much done for them, why should not he look after the rich? Like Simon, he believed that there was a power in money which was unlimited.

At 11.30 promptly John Marvel presented himself in the front room of the building attached to the church, in one corner of which was the rector's roomy office. A solemn servant was in waiting who took in his name, closing the door silently behind him, and after a minute returned and silently motioned John Marvel to enter. Dr. Capon was seated at his desk with a number of newspapers before him, and in response to John's "Good morning," he simply said, "Be seated," with a jerk of his head toward a chair which was placed at a little distance from him, and John took the seat, feeling, as he afterward told me, much as he used to feel when a small boy, when he was called up by a teacher and set down in a chair for a lecture. The rector shuffled his newspapers in a sudden little accession of excitement, taking off his gold-rimmed gla.s.ses and putting them on again, and then taking up one, he turned to John.

"Mr. Marvel, I am astonished at you--I am simply astounded that you should have so far forgotten yourself and what was due to your orders as to have done what I read in this sheet and what the whole press is ringing with."

"Well, sir," said John, who had by this time gotten entire control of himself, and felt completely at ease in the consciousness of his innocence and of his ability to prove it. "I am not surprised that you should be astounded unless you knew the facts of the case."

"What facts, sir?" demanded Dr. Capon sternly. "Facts! There is but one fact to be considered--that you have violated a fundamental canon."

"Yes, I knew it would look so, and I had intended to come yesterday to consult you as to the best method----"

"It is a pity you had not done so--that you allowed your sense of duty to be so obscured as to forget what was due alike to me and to your sacred vows."

"But I was very much engaged," pursued John, "with matters that appeared to me of much greater importance than anything relating to my poor self."

"Oh!" exclaimed the rector. "Cease! Cease your pretences! Mr. Marvel, your usefulness is ended. Sign that paper!"

He picked up and held out to him with a tragic air a paper which he had already prepared before John Marvel's arrival. John's mind had for the moment become a blank to some extent under the unexpected attack, and it was a mechanical act by which his eye took in the fact that the paper thrust into his hand was a resignation declaring that it was made on the demand of the rector for reasons stated which rendered it imperative that he sever his connection with that parish.

"I will not sign that paper," said John quietly.

"You will not what?" The rector almost sprang out of his chair.

"I will not sign that paper."

"And pray, why not?"

"Because it places me in the position of acknowledging a charge which, even if true, has not been specifically stated, and which is not true whatever the appearances may be, as I can readily prove."

"Not true?" the rector exclaimed. "Is it not true that you allowed a Jew to speak in your church, in my chapel?"

"That I did what?" asked John, amazed at the unexpected discovery of the rector's reason.

"That you invited and permitted a man named Wolffert, a socialistic Jew, to address a congregation in my chapel?"

"It is true," said John Marvel, "that I invited Mr. Wolffert to speak to an a.s.semblage in the chapel under my charge, and that he did so speak there."

"Uttering the most dangerous and inflammatory doctrines--doctrines alike opposed to the teaching of the church and to the command of the law?"

"That is not true," said John. "You have been misinformed."

"I do not wish or propose to discuss either this or any other matter with you, Mr. Marvel. You have allowed a Jew to speak in the house of G.o.d. Your usefulness is ended. You will be good enough to sign this paper, for you may rest a.s.sured that I know my rights and shall maintain them."

"No, I will not sign this paper," said John Marvel, "but I will resign.

Give me a sheet of paper."

The rector handed him a sheet, and John drew up a chair to the desk and wrote his resignation in a half-dozen words and handed it to the rector.

"Is that accepted?" he asked quietly.

"It is." The rector laid the sheet on his desk and then turned back to John Marvel. "And now, Mr. Marvel, allow me to say that you grossly, I may say flagitiously, violated the trust I reposed in you when----"

John Marvel held up his hand. "Stop! Not one word more from you. I am no longer your a.s.sistant. I have stood many things from you because I believed it was my duty to stand them, so long as I was in a position where I could be of service, and because I felt it my duty to obey you as my superior officer, but now that this connection is severed, I wish to say that I will not tolerate one more word or act of insolence from you."

"Insolence?" cried the rector. "Insolence? You are insolent yourself, sir. You do not know the meaning of the term."

"Oh! Yes, I know it," said John, who had cooled down after his sudden outbreak. "I have had cause to know it. I have been your a.s.sistant for two years. I bid you good morning, Dr. Capon." He turned and walked out, leaving the rector speechless with rage.

I do not mean in relating Dr. Capon's position in this interview to make any charge against others who might honestly hold the same view which he held as to the propriety of John Marvel's having requested Leo Wolffert to speak in his church, however much I myself might differ from that view, and however I might think in holding it they are t.i.thing the mint, anise, and c.u.min, and overlooking the weightier matters of the law. My outbreak of wrath, when John Marvel told me of his interview with the rector, was due, not to the smallness of the rector's mind, but to the simple fact that he selected this as the basis of his charge, when in truth it was overshadowed in his mind by the fact that Leo Wolffert's address had aroused the ire of one of his leading parishioners, and that the doctor was thus guilty of a sham in bringing his charge, not because of the address, but because of the anger of his wealthy parishioner.

Wolffert was savage in his wrath when he learned how John had been treated. "Your church is the church of the rich," he said to me; for he would not say it to John. And when I defended it and pointed to its work done among the poor, to its long line of faithful devoted workers, to its apostles and martyrs, to John Marvel himself, he said: "Don't you see that Dr. Caiaphas is one of its high-priests and is turning out its prophets? I tell you it will never prosper till he is turned out and the people brought in! Your Church is the most inconsistent in the world, and I wonder they do not see it. Its Head, whom it considers divine and worships as G.o.d, lived and died in a continual war against formalism and sacerdotalism, it was the foundation of all his teaching for which he finally suffered death at the hands of the priests. The imperishable truth in that teaching is that G.o.d is within you, and to be worshipped 'in spirit' and in truth; that not the temple made with hands, but the temple of the body is the one temple, and that the poor are his chosen people--the poor in heart are his loved disciples; yet your priests arrogate to themselves all that he suffered to overthrow. Your Dr. Capon is only Dr. Caiaphas, with a few slight changes, and presumes to persecute the true disciples precisely as his predecessors persecuted their master."

"He is not my Dr. Capon," I protested.

"Oh! well, he is the representative of the ecclesiasticism that crucifies spiritual freedom and subst.i.tutes form for substance. He 'makes broad his phylacteries and for a pretence makes long prayers.'"

"It appears to me that you are very fond of quoting the Bible, for an unbeliever," I said.

"I, an unbeliever! I, a Jew!" exclaimed Wolffert, whose eyes were sparkling. "My dear sir, I am the believer of the ages--I only do not believe that any forms established by men are necessary to bring men into communion with G.o.d--I refuse to believe selfishness, and arrogance, and blindness, when they step forth with bell, book, and candle, and say, obey us, or be d.a.m.ned. I refuse to worship a ritual, or a church. I will worship only G.o.d." He turned away with that detached air which has always struck me as something oriental.

As soon as it became known in his old parish that John had resigned he was called back there; but the solicitations of his poor parishioners that he should not abandon them in their troubles prevailed, and Wolffert and I united in trying to show him that his influence now was of great importance. Indeed, the workers among the poor of every church came and besought him to remain. Little Father Tapp, patting him on the shoulder, said, "Come to us, John, the Holy Father will make you a bishop." So he remained with his people and soon was given another small chapel under a less fashionable and more spiritual rector. I think Eleanor Leigh had something to do with his decision. I know that she was so urgent for him to remain that both Dr. Capon and I were given food for serious thought.

x.x.xIII

THE PEACE-MAKER

It was in this condition of affairs that a short time after John Marvel had been dismissed from his cure by his incensed rector, a great dinner was given by Mrs. Argand which, because of the lavishness of the display and the number of notable persons in the city who were present, and also because of a decision that was reached by certain of the guests at the dinner and the consequences which it was hoped might ensue therefrom, was fully written up in the press. If Mrs. Argand knew one thing well, it was how to give an entertainment which should exceed in its magnificence the entertainment of any other person in the city. She was a woman of great wealth. She had had a large experience both at home and abroad in entertainments whose expenditure remained traditional for years. She had learned from her husband the value, as a merely commercial venture, of a fine dinner. She knew the traditional way to men's hearts, and she felt that something was due to her position, and at the same time she received great pleasure in being the centre and the dispenser of a hospitality which should be a wonder to all who knew her.

Her house with its great rooms and galleries filled with expensive pictures lent itself well to entertainment. And Mrs. Argand, who knew something of history, fancied that she had what quite approached a salon. To be sure, those who frequented it were more familiar with stock-exchanges and counting-houses than with art or literature. On this occasion she had a.s.sembled a number of the leading men of affairs in the city, with the purpose not so much of entertaining them, as of securing from them a co-operation, which, by making a show of some concession to the starving strikers and their friends, should avail to stop the steady loss in her rents and drain on even her great resources. She had already found herself compelled, by reason of the reduction in her income, which prevented her putting by as large a surplus as she had been accustomed to put by year by year, to cut off a number of her charities, and this she disliked to do, for she not only regretted having to cut down her outlay for the relief of suffering, but it was a blow to her pride to feel that others knew that her income was reduced.

The idea of the dinner had been suggested by no less a person than Dr.

Capon himself, to whom the happy thought had occurred that possibly if a huge ma.s.s meeting composed of the strikers could be a.s.sembled in some great auditorium, and addressed by the leading men in the city, they might be convinced of the folly and error of their ways and induced to reject the false teaching of their designing leaders and return to work, by which he argued the great suffering would be immediately reduced, the loss alike to labor and to capital would be stopped, peace would be restored, and the general welfare be tremendously advanced. Moreover, he would show that his removal of his a.s.sistant was not due to his indifference to the poor as Wolffert had charged in a biting paper on the episode, but to a higher motive. What John Marvel had tried on a small scale he would accomplish on a vast one. He would himself, he said, take pleasure in addressing such an audience, and he felt sure that they would listen to the friendly admonition of a minister of the Gospel, who could not but stand to them as the representative of charity and divine compa.s.sion.

I will not attempt to describe the richness of the floral decorations which made Mrs. Argand's great house a bower of roses and orchids for the occasion, nor the lavish display of plate, gilded and ungilded, which loaded the great table, all of which was set forth in the press the following day with a lavishness of description and a wealth of superlatives quite equal to the display at the dinner; nor need I take time to describe the guests who were a.s.sembled. Mr. Leigh, who was invited, was not present, but expressed himself as ready to meet his men half-way. Every viand not in season was in the menu. It was universally agreed by the guests that no entertainment which was recalled had ever been half so rich in its decorations or so regal in its display or so sumptuous in its fare; that certainly the same number of millions had never been represented in any private house in this city, or possibly, in any city of the country. It remains only to be said that the plan proposed by the Rev. Dr. Capon met with the approval of a sufficient number to secure an attempt at its adoption, though the large majority of the gentlemen present openly expressed their disbelief that any good whatever would come of such an attempt, and more than one frankly declared that the doctor was attempting to sprinkle rose-water when really what was actually needed were guns and bayonets. The doctor, however, was so urgent in the expression of his views, so certain that the people would be reasonable and could not fail to be impressed by a kindly expression of interest, and the sound advice of one whom they must recognize as their friend, that a half-derisive consent was given to a trial of his plan.

Among the notices of this dinner was one which termed it "Belshazzar's Feast," and as such it became known in the workingmen's quarter. Its scorching periods described the Babylonian splendor of the entertainment provided for the officials of millionairedom, and pictured with simple art the nakedness of a hovel not five blocks away, in which an old man and an old woman had been found that day frozen to death. I recognized in it the work of Wolffert's virile pen. John Marvel might forgive Dr.

Capon, but not Wolffert Dr. Caiaphas. The proposed meeting, however, excited much interest in all circles of the city, especially in that underlying circle of the poor whose circ.u.mference circ.u.mscribed and enclosed all other circles whatsoever. What was, indeed, of mere interest to others was of vital necessity to them, that some arrangement should be arrived at by which work should once more be given to the ever-increasing body of the unemployed, whose sombre presence darkened the brightest day and tinged with melancholy the fairest expectation. In furtherance of Dr. Capon's plan a large hall was secured, and a general invitation was issued to the public, especially to the workingmen of the section where the strike existed, to attend a meeting set for the earliest possible moment, an evening in the beginning of the next week.

The meeting took place as advertised and the attendance exceeded all expectation. The heart of the poor beat with renewed hope, though, like their wealthy neighbors, many of them felt that the hope was a desperate one. Still they worked toward the single ray of light which penetrated into the gloom of their situation.