The Puritans Part 24

"No one can possibly disagree with the sentiments which have just been expressed," he began in his cordial, frank manner. "There is no truth which we need in these days to keep more constantly before us than the duty of being always eager for the advancement of the church, and of employing all means to this end. The question which is of vital interest is how best to do this. When the caution was given that to the harmlessness of doves be added the guile of serpents, it might almost seem as if it was especially intended for our own day and case. There has certainly never been a time when wisdom was more needed than it is to-day. The growth of doubt, the overthrow of old traditions, old beliefs, old forms, in short of all that has been sanctioned by custom and by time, have gone on in every department of human knowledge and endeavor. The spirit of the time is restless, progressive, liberal, even irreverent. The beautiful serenity of the church, its reverent conservatism, its hallowed enthusiasm, for old ideals, are at variance with the temper of the century. Since the church is the shrine of truth it is impossible that it should alter with every shifting of scientific thought, every alteration in the fashions of human opinion; and we stand face to face with the trying fact that the age is not in sympathy with the church."

He paused, looking down as if in thought. Ashe regarded him closely, much impressed by the apparent spontaneity and candor with which this was said. The hearers were closely attentive. "The only thing upon which we seem to have some possible disagreement," continued Mr.

Strathmore, "is in regard to the best method of meeting this want of sympathy, this feeling which often seems to amount almost to general indifference. Is it to arouse all the suspicion and opposition possible? Is it to seem to justify the charges brought against us of narrowness, of formalism, of repression, and of obstructing the progress of the race? It does not seem to me that this is the wisest course. I agree that it is our duty to forward the interests of the church, and to make our administration of charity a means to this end.

It is certainly a question whether open and avowed proselyting is the best means. Religion is no more to be bought with a price than is love.

The person who conforms for a soup-ticket or a blanket has simply added hypocrisy to his other failings, and has moreover gained for the church that contempt which men always feel for those they have overreached.

The child that goes to Sunday-school for the Christmas tree and the summer week has learned a lesson in deception which can never be blotted out. It is of course proper that these means should be used; but unless it is understood fully and frankly that they are employed not as a bribe but as a persuasion, not as a price but as a kindness, the evil that they do is more than any good that it is possible to bring about through their means. I do not believe that our charities should be conducted on the basis of bargain and sale; nor do I believe that they should be put on a sectarian basis at all."

He sat down quietly, with an unimpa.s.sioned air which seemed to rebuke the emotional close of the remarks of Father Frontford. Strathmore could be emotional and impa.s.sioned upon occasion, and this deliberate, matter-of-fact mien affected Ashe as a calculated stroke of policy.

Philip felt that his leader had suffered a defeat; and he was profoundly moved by the thought. Other speakers took up the question, but he paid little heed. He was occupied in speculating how the meeting would affect the chances of the election. When he was walking home with Mrs. Fenton after the session was over, he was so absorbed that she rallied him on his absent-mindedness.

"I was thinking of the discussion," he said. "I am afraid that Father Frontford injured himself this morning."

"But how n.o.ble it was of him to say what he believed in spite of the chances," she responded. "I was delighted with Mr. Candish for seconding him as he did."

"Yes," Ashe said, a pang of jealousy piercing him at the mention of Mr.

Candish. "It was fine. What I cannot make out," he added, "is whether Mr. Strathmore is as simple and candid as he looks. He always seems to speak sincerely and freely, and yet he somehow contrives never to say anything that might not have been thought out with the most clever policy."

"I cannot make out either," returned she. "Mr. Fenton used rather paradoxically to say that Mr. Strathmore was too frank by half to be honest."

She sighed as she spoke, and instantly all thought of bishops and church matters vanished from the mind of Ashe. He became entirely absorbed in wondering how warm was Mrs. Fenton's affection for her dead husband and in hating himself for the thought.

XV

HEARTSICK WITH THOUGHT Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. I

Instead of returning to Boston next morning, Maurice remained at Brookfield for ten days. Mrs. Morison decided the matter, and it is not to be supposed that he was entirely unwilling to be constrained.

He naturally saw much of Berenice, and he pa.s.sed hours in brooding over thoughts of her. He was convinced that she was not engaged. She had spoken of Stanford's visit, and it had seemed to Wynne that she had conveyed the impression that her relations to the visitor were less intimate than might at first sight appear. If she were free--the thought made his heart beat, and he wondered if, had the circ.u.mstances been different, he might himself have won her. He tormented himself with all her ways and words; the smiles she gave him, the trifling attentions which were addressed to the guest, but which seemed to have a touch of something deeper, that might be due to her thinking of him as her preserver, but which might even go beyond that. There was a delicious torture in all this reverie, in these continual self-reproaches which involved the thought of her, the remembrance of how she had looked, how she had spoken, how she had moved. He became every day more hopelessly her slave, yet every day insisting more strongly to himself that he felt nothing more than warm friend. Once for a moment he tried to believe that his feeling was merely a desire for her spiritual good, that his att.i.tude was that which it was proper for a priest to feel toward a beautiful and frivolous worldling; but the pretense was too ghastly, and he abandoned it with a shudder of disgust. He had moments, too, when he said to himself frankly, in defiance or in sorrow as the mood might be, that he loved her; but for the most part he tried to keep the a.s.sumption of simple friendship between him and bitter thought.

He found great pleasure in Mrs. Morison. She was to him a revelation of possibilities of which he had never dreamed. It was a continual surprise to him to find himself so impressed by the wit, the wisdom, and the sanity of this fine old lady. He not only felt himself an ignorant and inexperienced boy beside her, but found himself shrinking from comparing with her the men whom he had followed as leaders. The ease of her manner, the completeness of her self-poise, her frank simplicity, high-bred and winning, delighted him, while the extent of her mental resources filled him with amazement.

Mrs. Morison opened to Wynne a new world in her conversation. At first she gave herself up chiefly to entertaining him, telling him delightful stories of famous folk she had known, of her life abroad and in Washington. She was full of charming little tales which she had the art of relating as if she were not thinking of how she was telling them, but as if they came to her mind and bubbled into talk spontaneously.

She had a way, too, of putting in un.o.btrusive observations on character and events which impressed Maurice. The art of saying things trenchantly he had found in Mrs. Staggchase, but his cousin had the air of being aware of her cleverness, while Mrs. Morison said these things as if they were of the natural and habitual current of her thoughts.

Mrs. Morison said clever things as if she thought them; Mrs. Staggchase as if she thought of them.

It did not take the young man long to discover that Mrs. Morison was not in sympathy with his creed. She was too well-bred to bring the matter forward, but he could not resist the temptation now and then to touch upon it. She was of principles at once so broad and so deep that he found himself as often surprised by her devoutness as he felt it his duty to be shocked by her liberality. One day when Maurice had made some allusion to a discussion over the doctrine of predestination which was agitating the English church, Mrs. Morison said:--

"It always seems to me a pity that those who believe in that dreadful doctrine do not remember that if one were not one of the elect, he could at least carry through eternity the realization that he was lost through no fault of his own. G.o.d could not take from him that consolation."

He was silent in mingled amazement and disapproval; yet he found his mind following out with obstinate persistence the train of thought which her words suggested. In this or in many another remark it could hardly be said that her words convinced him, but they awoke a swarm of doubts in his mind. He found himself following speculations that were lawless, wild, dangerous, and intoxicating. However convinced he might be that the reasoning of Mrs. Morison was fallacious, he did not find it easy to tell just wherein the fallacy lay. He felt that as a priest he should be able to refute her, and he was filled with dismay to discover that he was rather himself falling into the att.i.tude of a doubter.

One subject which was constantly in his mind he did not touch upon until the day before he left Brookfield. He longed to sound Mrs.

Morison on the subject of a celibate priesthood. He was well enough aware that she would not approve of it, and he was irritated by the knowledge that he secretly felt that her decision would be founded on strong common sense. He tried to a.s.sure himself that it was her dangerous laxity of principle that blinded her to the n.o.bility and sanct.i.ty of asceticism; but it was impossible to feel that such was the case. He was teased by a wish which he would not acknowledge that she might advance arguments which he could not controvert; though to himself he said that she would be his temptation in tangible form, and that he would struggle against it with his whole soul.

His opportunity came while they were discussing the election of the bishop. Mrs. Morison was not immediately concerned in the matter, not being a churchwoman, but she had an intelligent interest in all questions of the day.

"I find it hard to understand," Mrs. Morison observed, "how any churchman can be so blind to the importance of conciliating public thought and the general feeling as for a moment to think of any other candidate than Mr. Strathmore. He is so completely in sympathy with the broadening tendencies of the time."

"But that means ultimately the destruction of creeds," Maurice objected, answering rather the implication than her words.

"I think that perhaps the highest courage men are called upon to show,"

she answered, "is that of giving up a theory which has served its use.

The race forces us to do it sooner or later, but the men who are really great are those who are able to say frankly that their creeds have done their work, and that the new day must have new ones. You might almost say that the extent to which a man prefers truth to himself is to be judged by his willingness to give up a dogma that is outworn."

"But you leave no stability to truth."

"The truth is stable without effort or will of mine," she returned, smiling; "but surely you would have human appreciation of it advance."

He felt that there must be an answer to this, but he was not able to see just what it was, and he shifted the question.

"But Mr. Strathmore," he said hesitatingly, "is married."

"Yes," she a.s.sented. "'The husband of one wife.'"

"If you begin to quote Scripture against me," Maurice retorted, laughing in spite of himself, "I might easily reply to St. Paul by St.

Paul. But letting that pa.s.s, it is certainly true that the church has always held that marriage absorbs a man in earthly things so that he cannot give the best of his thoughts to his work."

"When the church sets itself against marriage," Mrs. Morison responded quietly, "it seems to me to be setting up to know more than the Creator of the race."

Maurice colored, although he might not have been able to tell whether his strongest feeling was horror at this bold language or joy at the emphasis with which she spoke.

"Perhaps I should beg your pardon for saying so frankly what I think,"

Mrs. Morison continued. "It isn't the way in which one generally talks to a clergyman; but the subject is one for which I haven't much patience, and of course I couldn't help seeing that you are in doubt yourself."

Maurice started.

"What do you mean?" he stammered. "I--I in doubt?"

"I hadn't any intention of forcing your confidence," returned she. "I am an old woman, and sometimes I find that I don't make allowance enough for the slowness of you young people in arriving at a knowledge of self."

He cast down his eyes.

"Until this moment," he said, "I have never acknowledged to myself that I was in doubt. I see what you mean, and it shows that I have been playing with fire."

She looked at him questioningly, then turned the subject.

"Which is perhaps a hint that our fire is going down. Sit still, please. Every woman likes to tend her own fire."

"I should have learned that by this time," was his answer. "I lost an inheritance once by insisting upon fixing a fire."

"That sounds interesting. Is it proper to ask for the story?"

"Oh, there isn't much of a story. I had a great-aunt who was worth a lot of money, and who was eccentric. She was in a way fond of me when I was a child, and used to have me at the house a good deal. I confess I didn't like it much. Things went by rule, and the rules were often pretty queer. One of them was that n.o.body should presume to touch the fire if she was in the room. I liked to play with the fire as well as she did, and when I was a boy just in my teens I used to do it. After she'd corrected me half a dozen times I got into my foolish pate that it was my duty to cure her of her whim. So I set to poking the fire ostentatiously until she lost her temper and ordered me out of the house. Then she burned up the will in my favor and made a new one, giving all her money to the church."