James MacLaren Cobban

“ The strain imposed now upon a body weakened by the past year's privations and anxiety could not have been crueller if he had been under sentence of death; and, indeed, life or death seemed to his over-wrought nerves to hang upon the issue. If he failed, and he feared he would fail, fail signally, for he did not doubt but that the young and boisterous Mr. Lloyd was without nerves, and was a glib and self-confident talker—then Upton was lost, and his wife was condemned for Heaven alone knew how long to grievous poverty, and his child to a lingering death. ”

“ These poor people were fluttered with pride when they got so clever and beautiful a preacher for their own; they looked to see ere long the old chapel crowded with an attentive congregation as it had been in other days; and the chapel-keeper (who was also a painter) had put all the magnificent hopes of himself and his friends in the fresh inscription he made on the faded notice-board in the fore-court: "Minister, The Rev. James Murray, M.A.," in letters of gold. ”

“ But for this ignorant, conceited, and incompetent braggart I should be minister!"
And incontrollable dislike—and in his nervous, over-strained condition, hatred even—rose in him against the young man.
As Lloyd went on with his ding-dong, maddening talk, Mr. Murray, who could have cried aloud in his pain and despair of the loss he believed he had endured, observed absently that the inner handle of the door showed that the catch was open. The train slowed down, for some reason, in the middle of a tunnel, and Lloyd rose in his lusty, boisterous way, banged down the window, and looked out. ”

“ Would she not shrink from him with horror when she knew? And would not his boy—his little Jim!—when he grew up (if he ever grew up) be ashamed of the father who had so dishonoured his name?
"Oh, my God!" he cried in his misery and grief. "Let me bear the utmost punishment of my sin, but spare them! Punish not the innocent with the guilty! Let my dear wife and child live in peace and honour before Thee!"
He could not eat a morsel of breakfast—he had scarcely tasted food or drink for two whole days—and he could not rest in the lodgings. ”

“ Murray, though he appeared only to be very quiet. For he thought: "A large congregation like this of Upton must necessarily have more people like these Browns than like my friends of last Sunday; and it must, therefore, needs be that this Mr. Lloyd—who has no harm in him, I daresay, but who is little more than a rough, noisy, presumptuous boy not long from school—it must be that he should be preferred by the majority to me. I may as well, then, give up all hope of coming here. But what then of Mary and the boy—the boy?" ”

“ The first part of the service was gone through, and the minister rose to deliver his sermon. He gave out his text, "And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear!" and glanced round upon the congregation, who sat up wondering what was to come of that. He repeated it, and happening to look down, saw seated immediately below the pulpit, looking as well and self-satisfied as usual, the young man whom he had imagined crushed in the tunnel! The revulsion of feeling was too great ”

“ Write and say that you do not feel you can take more than the morning service. I'll go with you, and you shall do as you say—and the rest is with God."
Thus it was arranged. And on Sunday morning they set off together for Upton, leaving the boy in the care of the landlady. They had no word to say to each other in the train, but they held close each other's hand. They avoided greetings, and introductions, and felicitations save from one or two by keeping close in the vestry till the hour struck, and the attendant came to usher the minister to the pulpit. ”

“ Let us take the opportunity of this pause to explain how the Reverend James Murray got into the anxious position in which we find him. He was a minister of a well-known denomination of Nonconformists. When he left college he had been reckoned a young man of great promise and of considerable powers of persuasive eloquence, and he was expected to become a famous preacher. He was Invited to be the minister of a large and wealthy congregation in a northern manufacturing town. ”

“ Murray, and I know that many of our people have been much impressed by you this morning." Then, unconsciously, he went on to dash somewhat the minister's lively hopes. "There is a young man—Mr. Lloyd: you may know him. No? Well some of our people are very much taken with him. He is a brilliant, popular sort of young fellow; but he is young—he has only been some two years or so a minister—and he is unmarried, and and well, I don't want to say anything against him—but he is just a little flighty, and we older folk doubt how we should get on with him. ”

“ It's a rich congregation, and I think I must get that. And, Mary," he went on, "what if they should ask me to be their minister? You know they are without one. Perhaps the 'letter to follow' will say something. Upton is a beautiful, bracing suburb, and Jim—our own little Jim!" ”

“ It came on with thunderous roar and passed, and the minister sank back in the carriage alone, and fainted!
IV.
He came to himself only outside the London terminus at which he had to arrive, when the train drew up, and a man came along for the collection of tickets. In a halfdazed condition (which the ticket-collector probably considered intoxication) , he surrendered his ticket without a word, and then the train went on, and presently he was on the platform, stumbling out of the station on his way home, but no more in touch with the people and things he passed among than a man in a dream. ”

“ He accepted the invitation, and for two or three years he was a great favourite with his people; never, they declared, had they heard so fine a preacher (though he was sometimes so "fine" that they did not understand him) , and never had they known a better man. His praise was in everybody's mouth; the men admired him and the women adored him. ”

“ On Wednesday came a letter from his first host—the Chairman of Committee. It contained little, but that little was charged with meaning and anxiety for the minister. Nothing, it declared, was yet absolutely decided; but on Thursday evening there was to be held a certain debate in the Lecture-room, in which it had been resolved that both Mr. Murray and Mr. Lloyd should be asked to take part.
"I am not officially instructed," continued the writer, "to say this to you, but I think I ought to tell you that there is a disposition among a good many to form their final choice for you or for Mr. ”