the reverend smith boyd walked slowly out into the dim church, with the little volume in his hand. the afternoon sun had sunk so low that the illumination from the stained-glass windows was cut off by the near buildings, and the patches of ruby and of sapphire, of emerald and of topaz, glowed now near the tops of the slender columns, or mellowed the dusky spaces up amid the arches.
it was hushed and silent there, deserted, and far from the thoughts of men. the young rector walked slowly up the aisle to a pew in the corner near the main entrance, and sat down, still with the little book of common prayer in his hand, and, in the book, the articles of religion. from them alone must he preach; nothing more and nothing less. that was the duty for which he was hired. his own mind, his own intelligence, the reason and the spirit and the soul which god had given him were for no other use than the clever support of the things which were printed here. and who had formulated these articles? men; men like himself. they had made their interpretation in solemn conclave, and had defined the deity, and the form in which he must be addressed, as one instructs a servant in the proper words to use in announcing the arrival of a guest or the readiness of a dinner. the interpretation made, these men had arrogantly closed 363the book, and had said, in effect, this is the way of salvation, and none other can avail. unless a man believes what is here set down, he can in nowise enter the kingdom of heaven; and a pure life filled with good works is for naught.
the reverend smith boyd had no need to read those articles of religion. he had been over them countless times, and he knew them by heart, from beginning to end. he had opened wide the credulity of his mind, and had forced his belief into these channels, so that he might preach the gospel, not of christ, but of his church, with a clean conscience. and he had done so. whatever doubts there had lurked in him, from that one period of infidelity in his youth, he had shut off behind a solid wall over which he would not peer. there were many things behind that wall which it were better for him not to see, he had told himself, lest, from among them, some false doctrine may creep up and poison the purity of his faith. he had thrown himself solidly on faith. belief implicit and unfaltering was necessary to the support of the dogmatic theology he taught, and he gave it that belief; implicit and unfaltering. reason had no part in religion or in theology; and for good cause!
but here had come a condition where reason, like a long suppressed passion of the body, clamoured insistently to be heard, and would have its voice, and strode in, and took loud possession. joseph g. clark, so filled with iniquity that he could not see his own sins, so rotted, to the depths of his soul, that he could twist every violation of moral law into a virtue, so sunken in the foulness of every possible onslaught upon mercy and justice and humanity that millions suffered from his deeds, this man could sit in the vestry of market 364square church, and control the destinies of an organisation built ostensibly for the purpose of saving souls and spreading the gospel of mercy and justice and humanity, could sit in the seat of the holy, because, with his lips he could say: “i acknowledge christ as my redeemer”! rufus manning, whose life was an open page, whose record was one upon which there was no blot, who had lived purely, and humanely, and mercifully and compassionately, who had given freely of his time and of his goods for the benefit of those who were weak and helpless and needy, who had read deeply into human hearts, and had comforted them because he was gifted with a portion of that divine compassion which sent an only begotten son to die upon the cross, that through his blood the sins of man might be washed away, this man could be driven from the vestry of market square church, itself guilty and stained with sin, because he could not, or would not say with his lips, “i acknowledge christ as my redeemer”!
reason made a terrific onslaught against faith at this juncture. familiar as he was with the book, the reverend smith boyd turned to the articles of religion.
“we are accounted righteous before god, only for the merit of our lord and saviour jesus christ by faith, and not for our own works or deserving....
“works done before the grace of christ, and the inspiration of his spirit, are not pleasant to god, for as much as they spring not of faith in jesus christ; neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or deserve grace of congruity: yea, rather, for that they are not done as god hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.”
there was some discrepancy here between the works 365and the faith of clark and the works and the faith of manning. the reverend smith boyd made no doubt that the great judge would find little difficulty in distinguishing between these two men, and in deciding upon their respective merits; but that was not the point which disturbed the young rector. it was the attitude of the church towards these men, and the fact that he must uphold that attitude. it was absurd! the reverend smith boyd was a devout and earnest and consistent believer, not merely in the existence of god, but in his greatness and his power and his glory, his justice and his mercy and his wisdom; but the reverend smith boyd suddenly made the startling discovery that he was not preaching god! he was preaching the church and its creed!
started, now, he went through the thirty-nine articles of religion, one by one, slowly, thoughtfully, and with a quickened conscience. reason knocked at the door of faith, and entered; but it did not drive out faith. they sat side by side, but each gave something to the other. no, rather, reason stripped the mask from faith, tore away the disguising cloak, and displayed her in all her simple beauty, sweet, and gentle, and helpful. what was the faith he had been called upon to teach? faith in the thirty-nine articles of religion! this had been cleverly substituted by the organisers of an easy profession, for faith in god, which latter was too simple of comprehension for the purposes of any organisation.
for a long time the reverend smith boyd sat in the corner pew, and when he had closed the book, all that had been behind the wall of his mind came out, and was sorted into heaps, and the bad discarded and the good retained. he found a wonderful relief in that. he 366had lived with a secret chamber in his heart, hidden even from himself, and now that he had opened the door, he felt free. above him, around him, within him, was the presence of god, infinite, tender, easy of understanding; and from that god, his god, the one which should walk with him through life his friend and comforter and counsellor, he stripped every shred of pretence and worthless form and useless ceremony!
“i believe in god the creator; the maker of my conscience; my friend and father.” the creed of gail!
he walked out into the broad centre aisle, now, amid the solemn pews and the avenue of slender columns, and beneath graceful arches which pointed heavenward the aspirations of the human soul. before the altar he paused and gazed up at the beautiful henri dupres crucifix. the soft light from one of the clerestory windows flooded in on him, and the compassionate eyes of the son of god seemed bent upon the young rector in benign sympathy. for a moment the rector stood, tall and erect, then he stretched forth his arms:
“i know that my redeemer liveth!” he said, and sank to his knees.
two high points he had kept in his faith, points never to be shaken; the existence of his creator, his mercy and his love, and the divinity of his son, who died, was crucified and buried, and on the third day arose to ascend unto heaven. reason could not destroy that citadel in a man born to the necessity of faith! man must believe some one thing. if it was as easy, as he had once set forth, to believe in the biblical account of the creation of the world as to believe in a pre-existent chaos, out of which evoluted the spirit 367of life, and all its marvels of growing trees and flying birds and reasoning men, it was as easy to go one step further, and add the son to the father and to the holy ghost! even chaos must have been created!
fully satisfied, the reverend smith boyd walked into the vestry, and wrote his resignation from the rectorship of market square church, for he could no longer teach, and preach, faith—in the thirty-nine articles of religion! within his grasp he had held a position of wealth, of power, of fame! he scarcely considered their loss; and in the ease with which he relinquished them, he knew that he was self-absolved from the charge of using his conscience as a ladder of ambition! if personal vanity had entered into his desire to build the new cathedral, it had been incidental, not fundamental. it made him profoundly happy to know this with positiveness.
he called up the house of jim sargent, and asked for gail.
“come over,” he invited her. “i want to see you very much. i’m in the church. come in through the vestry.”
“all right,” was the cheerful reply. “i’ll be there in a minute.”
he had been very sly! he was tremendously pleased with himself! he had kept out of his voice all the longing, and all the exultation, and all the love! he would not trust even one vibration of his secret to a cold telephone wire!
he set the door of the vestry open wide. within the church, the organist had conquered that baffling run in the mighty prelude of bach, and the great dim spaces up amid the arches were pulsing in ecstasy with the tremendous harmony. outside, upon the background 368of the celestial strain, there rose a fluttering, a twittering, a cooing. the doves of spring had returned to the vestry yard.
just a moment and gail appeared, poised in the doorway, with a filmy pink scarf about her shoulders, a simple frock of delicate grey upon her slender figure, her brown hair waving about her oval face, a faint flush upon her cheeks, her brown eyes sparkling, her red lips smiling up at him.
he had intended to tell her much, but instead, he folded her in his arms, and she nestled there, content. for a long, happy moment they stood, lost to the world of thought; and then she looked up at him, and laughed.
“i knew it from your voice,” she said.
he laughed with her; then he grew grave, but there was the light of a great happiness in his gravity.
“i have resigned,” he told her.
that was a part of what she had known.
“and not for me!” she exulted. it was not a question. she saw that in him was no doubt, no quandary, no struggle between faith and disbelief.
“i see my way clearly,” he smiled down at her; “and there are no thorns to cut for me. i shall never change.”
“and we shall walk hand in hand about the greatest work in the world,” she softly reminded him, and there were tears in her eyes. “but what work shall that be, tod?” she looked up at him for guidance, now.
“to shed into other lives some of the beauty which blossoms in our own,” he replied, walking with her into the great dim nave, where the shadows still quivered with the under-echoes of the mighty bach prelude. “i have been thinking much of the many things you have 369said to me,” he told her, “and particularly of the need, not for a new religion, but for a re-birth of the old; that same new impulse towards the better and the higher life which christ brought into the world. i have been thinking on the mission of him, and it was the very mission to the need of which you have held so firmly. he came to clear away the thorns of creed which had grown up between the human heart and god! the brambles have grown again. the time is almost ripe, gail, for a new quickening of the spirit; for the second coming.”
she glanced at him, startled.
“for a new voice in the wilderness,” she wondered.
“not yet,” he answered. “we have signs in the hearts of men, for there is a great awakening of the public conscience throughout the world; but before the day of harvest arrives, we must have a sign in the sky. no great spiritual revival has ever swept the world without its attendant supernatural phenomena, for mysticism is a part of religion, and will be to the end of time. reason, by the very nature of itself, realises its own limitations, and demands something beyond its understanding upon which to hang its faith. it is the need of faith which distinguishes the soul from the mind.”
“a sign,” mused gail, her eyes aglow with the majesty of the thought.
“it will come,” he assured her, with the calm prescience of prophecy itself. “as no great spiritual revival has ever swept the world without its attendant supernatural phenomena, so no great spiritual revival has ever swept the world without its concreted symbol which men might wear upon their breasts. the cross! what shall be its successor? a ball of fire in the sky? 370who knows! if that symbol of man’s spiritual rejuvenation, of his renewed nearness to god, were, in reality, a ball of fire, gail, i would hold it up in the sight of all mankind though it shrivelled my arm!”
the thin treble note stole out of the organ loft, pulsing its timid way among the high, dim arches, as if seeking a lodgment where it might fasten its tiny thread of harmony, and grow into a song of new glory, the glory which had been born that day in the two earnest hearts beneath in the avenue of slender columns. the soft light from one of the clerestory windows flooded in on the compassionate son of man above the altar. the very air seemed to vibrate with the new inspiration which had been voiced in the old market square church. gail gazed up at smith boyd, with the first content her heart had ever known; content in which there was both earnestness and serenity, to replace all her groping. he met her gaze with eyes in which there glowed the endless love which it is beyond the power of speech to tell. there was a moment of ecstasy, of complete understanding, of the perfect unity which should last throughout their lives. in that harmony, they walked from the canopy of dim arches, out through the vestry, and beneath the door above which perched the two grey doves, cooing. for an instant gail looked back into the solemn depths, and a wistfulness came into her eyes.
“the ball of fire,” she mused. “when shall we see it in the sky?”
