Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

“ The electric lights sprang out all over the church. In the sudden brilliance the kneeling people lifted their wet faces to the stranger's, thinking to catch a last sight of him for life-long treasure.
But the chancel was empty. As silently, as strangely, as he had come, the preacher had gone. It was the fashion of the man. Such was his will. He was never seen at Saint Agatha's again; nor, though his name and fame were widely sought, were they ever learned by any.
The great, strange crowd of worshipers melted mutely away. No man spoke to his neighbor ”

“ Upon the afternoon of that long-remembered Sunday there was seen in Saint Agatha's the strangest sight that those ancient walls had witnessed since the corner-stone was laid with a silver trowel in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost "whom we, this people, worship."
Before the chimes rang for the vesper service, the house was filled. Before the bronze lips of the bells were mute, the pews were packed. Before the stranger reappeared, the nave and the transept overflowed. The startled sexton was a leaf before the wind of the surging crowd. ”

“ When the tax-list of the town is printed in the daily papers once a year, the wardens and the leading parishioners of Saint Agatha's stand far upwards in the score, and their names are traced by slow, grimy fingers of mechanics and strikers and socialists laboriously reading on Saturday nights.
The choir of Saint Agatha's, as all the world knows, is superior. Her soprano alone (a famous prima donna) would fill the house. Women throng the aisles to hear the tenor, and musical critics, hat in hand, and pad on hat, drop in to report the anthem and the offertory for the Monday morning press. ”

“ In one particular Saint Agatha's has been thrust into an attitude of originality foreign to her taste. Her leading men feel called upon occasionally to explain how the eternal feminine came—a little contrary to the fashion of our land—to be recognized in the name of the church. Saint Agatha's first pastor, one should know, was a very young man of enthusiastic and unconventional temperament. He did not live long enough to outgrow this—for a clergyman—unfortunate trend of nature, having died, full of dreams and visions, in the teeth of a lowering conflict with his wardens ”

“ In closing, permit me to say, sir, that it would be agreeable to us to welcome among us the grandson of our first pastor, that young rector who died in the bud of his youth and Christian originality. The fact of your ancestry will give to your presence a peculiar interest for our people at large. But I beg to be allowed to add on behalf of the committee, that certain qualities in yourself and in your own work have led us to believe that you may exert positive influences upon us of which we stand in need. In your remote and rural parish your life has not passed unobserved. ”

“ He was to be the guest of the vestryman who wrote that pleasant letter. He was to preach in Saint Agatha's to-morrow. He was to—
Nay,—he was not,—nay. He was to do none of these things. A sick man, mortally a sick man, past power of speech, he lay upon his carpet lounge, shivering under the pile of thin blankets and cotton comforters that had been wrapped around him, and gently faced his fate. He could not preach at Saint Agatha's. And he could not explain to the vestry. Perhaps his heart-sickness about this matter subsided a little—one likes to think so—as his disease grew upon him ”

“ Wretched men, called in by the throb of repentance that follows a debauch, lifted their haggard eyes to the chancel from the pews of the wardens, and women of the town sat gently beside the "first ladies" of the parish and of the city. There were a few ragged children in the audience, wan and shrewd, sitting drearily beside mothers to whom they did not cling. The pew of our friend, the vestryman, was filled to overflowing. ”

“ It was just before Lent, and the winter had been a cold one. One Friday evening in early March there came up, or came down, a drifting snow-storm. It was bad enough in town, but in the suburbs it was worse, and in the country it was little less than dangerous to passengers through the wide, wind-swept streets, the choking lanes, and bitter moors.
An old clergyman, the pastor of a scattered parish, sat in his study on that Friday night, and thanked God that the weekly evening service was over, and his day's work done. ”

“ This fact in itself was a matter of no concern, under ordinary conditions, to the old clergyman, who, being a lonely man in a forlorn country boarding-house, with nobody to take care of him, was accustomed to live under the shadow of a "common cold," and who paid no more attention to his own physical discomforts in the face of daily duty than he paid to the latest fashion in sable trimmings in the front pews at Saint Agatha's. ”

“ The vestryman sat nervously in his pew. He had not fully recovered from the fact that his supply had disappointed him. Having sent his coachman in vain to all the Saturday evening trains to meet his country parson, the vestryman had passed but an uneasy night.
"I had supposed the old man had principles about Sunday travel," he said to his wife, "but it seems he is coming in the morning, after all. He might at least have sent me word."
"Telegraphing in the country is—difficult, sometimes, I have heard," replied the lady, vaguely. ”

“ The church is not without a history, chiefly such as fashion and sect combine to record. It is an eminent church, with a stately date upon its foundation stone, and a pew-list unsurpassed for certain qualities among the worshipers of the Eastern States. Saint Agatha's has long been distinguished for three things, its money, its music, and its soundness. ”

“ Already wet through and through his thin coats and worn flannels, weak from the exposure, the watching, and the scene of death, every breath a sword athwart his inflamed lungs, with fire in his brain, and ice at his heart, he staggered against the blizzard. ”

“ Do such things pay? God knows. But as long as men do not know, there will always be found a few among them who will elect to disregard the doubt, to wear the divinity of uncalculating sacrifice, and to pay its price.
For the soul of the widow Peek the price was large, looked at in our mathematical way; for, when the old clergyman, having shrived her soul and closed her eyes, started to come home at one o'clock of the morning, the storm had become a malignant force. ”

“ Where were those whom their Lord did love? Go, seek them. Go, find the saddest, sickest souls in all the town. Hasten, for the time is short. Search, for the message is of God. Church of Christ, produce his people to me, for I speak no more words before their substitutes!
Thus and there, abruptly, the preacher cast his audience from him, and disappeared from the chancel. The service broke in consternation. The celebrated choir was not called upon to close the morning's worship. ”

“ Your labors as a pastor, and your methods of preaching, have been an object of study to some of us. We have come to rate you, sir, as one of the men of God. There are not many. In meeting with our people, the writer personally hopes that you may be able to teach us something of the secret of your own happy and successful experience as a minister of Christ our Lord." ...
The old clergyman sat with his feet upon the base of his little cylinder coal-stove. ”

“ On the whole, perhaps the parish enjoyed their rector's vacation as much as he did.
Now, upon the vestry there chanced at that time to be one man who was "different." One does find such people even among the officers of fashionable churches. This man (he was, by the way, a grand-nephew of the old lady who built the church when Saint Agatha's was an unendowed experiment) had occasional views not wholly in harmony with the policy of his brother officers ”

“ It's just like her to take a night like this—but she's sent for you. I must say I don't call you fit to go."
"A man is always fit to do his duty," said the old clergyman, rising. "I will go at once. ”