there was a strained atmosphere in the vestry meeting from the first. every member present felt the tension from the moment old joseph g. clark walked in with chisholm. they did not even nod to the reverend smith boyd, but took their seats solidly in their customary places at the table, clark, shielding his eyes, as was his wont, against the light which streamed on him from the red robe of the good shepherd. the repression was apparent, too, in the reverend smith boyd, who rose to address his vestrymen as soon as the late-comers arrived.
“gentlemen,” said he, “i wish to speak to you as the treasury committee, rather than as vestrymen, for it is in the former capacity which you always attend. i am advised that we have been paid for vedder court.”
chisholm, to whom he directed a gaze of inquiry, nodded his head.
“it’s in the majestic,” he stated. “i have plans for its investment, which i wish to lay before the committee.”
“i shall lay my own before them at the same time,” went on the rector. “i wish, however, to preface these plans by the statement that i have, so far as i am concerned, relinquished all thought of building the new cathedral.”
354nicholas van ploon, who had been much troubled of late, brightened, and nodded his round head emphatically.
“that’s what i say,” he declared.
“the decision does not lay in your hands, doctor boyd,” drawled a nasal voice with an unconcealed sneer in it. it was clean-shaven old joseph g. clark, who was not disturbed, in so much as the parting of one hair, by all the adverse criticism of him which had filled column upon column of the daily press for the past few days. “the rector has never, in the history of market square church, been given the control of its finances. he has invariably been hired to preach the gospel.”
sargent, cunningham, manning, and even van ploon, looked at clark in surprise. he was not given to open reproof. chisholm manifested no astonishment. he sat quietly in his chair, his fingers idly drumming on the edge of the table, but his mutton-chop beard was pink from the reddening of the skin beneath.
“the present rector of market square church means to have a voice in its deliberations so long as he is the rector!” announced that young man emphatically, and jim sargent looked up at him with a jerk of his head. the reverend smith boyd was pale this afternoon, but there was a something shining through his pallor which made the face alive; and the something was not temper. rufus manning, clasping his silvery beard with a firm grip, smiled encouragingly at the tall young orator. “i have said that i have, so far as i am concerned, relinquished the building of the cathedral,” the rector went on. “for this there are two reasons. the first is that its building will bring us further away from 355the very purpose for which the church was founded; the worship of god with an humble and a contrite heart! i am ready to confess that i found, on rigid self-analysis, my leading motive in urging the building of the new cathedral to have been vanity. i am also ready to confess, on behalf of my congregation and vestry, that their leading motive was vanity!”
“you have no authority to speak for me,” interrupted chisholm, his mutton chops now red.
“splendour is no longer the exclusive property of religion,” resumed the rector, paying no attention to the interruption. “it has lost the greater part of its effectiveness because splendour has become a mere adjunct to the daily luxury of our civilisation. the new cathedral would be only a surrounding in keeping with the gilded boudoirs from which my lady parishioners step to come to worship; and the ceremony of worship has become the sunday substitute, in point of social recognition, for the week day tea. if i thought, however, that the building of that cathedral would promote the spread of the gospel in a degree commensurate with the outlay, i would still be opposed to the erection of the building; for the money does not belong to us!”
“go right on and develop our conscience,” approved manning, smiling up at the old walnut-beamed ceiling with its carved cherub brackets.
“the money belongs to vedder court,” declared the rector; “to the distorted moral cripples which market square church, through the accident of commerce, has taken under her wing. gentlemen, in the recent revelations concerning the vast industrial interests of the world, i have seen the whole blackness of modern corporate methods; and market square church is a corporation! corporations were originally formed for 356the purpose of expediting commerce, and it is the mere logic of opportunity that their progress to rapacity, coercion, and merciless strangulation of all competition, has been so swift. they have at no time been swayed by any moral consideration. this fact is so notorious that it has given rise to the true phrase ‘corporations have no souls.’ i wish to ask you, in how far the market square church has been swayed, in its commercial dealings, by moral considerations?”
he paused, and glanced from man to man of his vestry. sargent and manning, the former of whom knew his plans and the latter of whom had been waiting for them to mature, smiled at him in perfect accord. nicholas van ploon sat quite placidly, with his hands folded over his creaseless vest. willis cunningham, stroking his sparse brown vandyke, looked uncomfortable, as if he had suddenly been introduced into a rude brawl; but his eye roved occasionally to nicholas van ploon, who was two generations ahead of him in the acquisition of wealth, by the brilliant process of allowing property to increase in valuation. chisholm glared.
“you’ll not find any money which is not tainted,” snapped joseph g. clark, who regarded money in a strictly impersonal light. “the very dollar you have in your pocket may have come direct from a brothel.”
“or from vedder court,” retorted the rector. “we have brothels there, though we do not ‘officially’ know it. we have saloons there; we have gambling rooms there; and, from all these iniquities, market square church reaps a profit! for the glory of god? i dare you, joseph g. clark, or w. t. chisholm, to answer me that question in the affirmative! in vedder court there are tenements walled and partitioned with contagion, 357poison, with miasmatic air, reeking with disease; and from the poor who flock into this fetid shelter, because we offer them cheap rents, market square church takes a profit as great as any distillery combine! for the glory of god? out of very shame we can not answer that question! we have bought and sold with the greed of any conscienceless individual, and our commodity has been filth and degradation, human lives and stunted souls! no decent man would conduct the business we do, for the reason that it would soil his soul as a gentleman; and it is a shameful thing that a gentleman should have finer ethics than a christian church! in the beginning, i was a coward about this matter! it was because i wished to be rid of our responsibility in vedder court that i first urged the conversion of that property into a cathedral. we can not rid ourselves of the responsibility of vedder court! if it were possible for a church to be sent to hell, market square church would be eternally damned if it took this added guilt upon it!”
“this talk is absurd,” declared chisholm. “the city has taken vedder court away from us.”
“only the property,” quickly corrected rufus manning, turning to chisholm with sharpness in his deep blue eyes. “if you will remember, i told you this same thing before doctor boyd came to us. i have waited ever since his arrival for him to develop to this point, and i wish to announce myself as solidly supporting his views.”
“your own will not bear inspection!” charged clark, turning to manning with a scowl.
“i’ll range up at the judgment seat with you!” flamed manning. “we’re both old enough to think about that!”
358joseph g. clark jumped to his feet, and, leaning across the table, shook a thin forefinger at manning.
“i have been attacked enough on the point of my moral standing!” he declared, his high pitched nasal voice quavering with an anger he had held below the explosive point during the most of his life. “i can stand the attacks of a sensational press, but when spiteful criticism follows me into my own vestry, almost in the sacred shadow of the altar itself, i am compelled to protest! i wish to state to this vestry, once and for all, that my moral status is above reproach, and that my conduct has been such as to receive the commendation of my maker! because it has pleased divine providence to place in my hands the distribution of the grain of the fields, i am constantly subject to the attacks of envy and malice! it has gone so far that i, last night, received from the reverend smith boyd, a request to resign from this vestry!” he paused in triumph on that, as if he had made against the reverend smith boyd a charge of such ghastly infamy that the young rector must shrivel before his eyes. “i have led a blameless life! i have never smoked nor drank! i have paid every penny i ever owed and fulfilled every promise i ever made. i have obeyed the gospel, and partaken of the sacraments, and the divine being has rewarded me abundantly! he has chosen me, because of my faithful stewardship, to gather the foods of earth from its sources, and feed it to the mouths of the hungry; and i shall not depart from my stewardship in this church, because i am here, as i am everywhere, by the will of god!”
perhaps w. t. chisholm was not shocked by this blasphemy, but the dismay of it sat on every other face, 359even on that of nicholas van ploon, who was compelled to dig deep to find his ethics.
“you infernal old thief!” wondered manning, recovering from his amazement. “was it divine providence which directed you to devise the scheme whereby the railroads paid you two dollars rebate on every car of wheat you shipped, and a dollar bonus on every car of wheat your competitors shipped? i could give you a string of sins as long as the catechism, and you dare not deny one of them, because i can prove them on you! and yet you have the effrontery to say that a divine providence would establish you in your monopoly, by such scoundrelly means as you have risen to become the greatest dispenser of self advertising charities in the world! you propose to ride into heaven on your universities and your libraries, and on the fact that you never smoked nor drank nor swore nor gambled; but when you come face to face with this horrible new god you have created, a deity who would permit you to attain wealth by the vile methods you have used, you will find him with a pitch-fork in his hands! i am glad that doctor boyd, though knowing your vindictive record, has had bravery enough to demand your resignation from this vestry! i hope he receives it!”
joseph g. clark had remained standing, and his head shook, as with a palsy, while he listened to the charge of manning. he was a very old man, and it had been quite necessary for him to restrain his passions throughout his life.
“you will go first!” he shouted at manning. “i am impregnable; but you have no business on this vestry! you can be removed at any time an examination 360is ordered, for i have heard you, we have all heard you, deny the immaculate conception, and thereby the divinity of christ, in whom alone there is salvation!”
a hush like death fell on the vestry. the reverend smith boyd was the first to break the ghastly silence.
“gentlemen,” said he, “i do not think that we are in a mood to-day for further discussion. i suggest that we adjourn.”
his voice seemed to distract the attention of clark from manning, at whom he had been glowering. he turned on the reverend smith boyd the remainder of the wrath which marked his first break into senility.
“as for you!” he snarled, “you will keep your fingers out of matters which do not concern you! you were hired to preach the gospel, and you will confine your attention to that occupation, preaching just what you find sanctioned in this book; nothing more, nothing less!” and taking a small volume which lay on the table, he tossed it in front of the reverend smith boyd.
it was the book of common prayer, containing, in the last pages, the articles of faith.
clark seized his hat and coat, and strode out of the door, followed by the red-faced chisholm, who had also been asked to resign. nicholas van ploon rose, and shook hands with the reverend smith boyd.
“sargent has told me about your plan for the new tenements,” he stated. “i am in favour of buying the property.”
“we’ll swing it for you, boyd,” promised jim sargent. “i’ve been talking with some of the other members, and they seem to favour the idea that the new vedder court will be a great monument. there’ll be no such magnificent charity in the world, and no such impressive sacrifice as giving up that cathedral! i 361think cunningham will be with us, when it comes to a vote.”
“certainly,” interposed nicholas van ploon. “we don’t need to make any profit from those tenements. the normal increase in ground value will be enough.”
“yes,” said cunningham slowly. “i am heartily in favour of the proposition.”
“coming along, doctor,” invited manning, going for his coat and hat.
“no, i think not,” decided the reverend smith boyd quietly.
he was sitting at the end of the table facing the good shepherd, at the edge of whose robe still sparkled crystalline light, and in his two hands he thoughtfully held the book of common prayer.
