PAGE 9
A Preacher’s Love Story
by
“Friends, with the help of Christ I am come among you to do you good. I shall hold meetings each night here in the schoolhouse until we can unite and rebuild the church again. Let me say now, friends, that I was educated a Baptist. My father was a faithful worker in the Baptist Church, and so was his father before him. I was educated in a Baptist college, and I came here hoping to build up a Baptist Church.” He paused.
“But I see my mistake. I am here to build up a Church of Christ, of good deeds and charity and peace, and so I here say I am no longer a Baptist or Methodist. I am only a preacher, and I will not rest until I rebuild the church which stands rotting away there.” His voice rang with determination as he uttered those words.
The people listened. There was no movement now. Even the babies seemed to feel the need of being silent. When he began again it was to describe that hideous wreck. He delineated the falling plaster, the litter around the pulpit, the profanation of the walls. “It is a symbol of your sinful hearts!” he cried.
Much more he said, carried out of himself by his passion. It was as if the repentant spirit of his denominational fathers were speaking through him; and yet he was not so impassioned that he did not see, or at least feel, the eyes of the strong young girl fixed upon him; his resolutions were spoken to her, and a swift response seemed to leap from her eyes.
When it was over, some of the Methodists and one of the Baptists came up to shake hands with him, awkwardly wordless, and the pressure of their hands helped him. Many of the Baptist brethren slipped outside to discuss the matter. Some were indignant, others much moved.
Allen went by him with an audible grunt of derision, with a dark scowl on his face, but Mattie smiled at him, with tears still in her eyes. She had been touched by his vibrant voice; she had no sins to repent of.
The skeptics of the neighborhood were quite generally sympathetic. “You’ve struck the right trail now, parson,” said Chapman, as they walked homeward together. “The days of the old-time denominationalism are about played out.”
But the young preacher was not so sure of it, now that his inspiration was gone. He remembered his debt to his college, to his father, to the denomination, and it was not easy to set aside the grip of such memories.
He sat late revolving the whole situation in his mind. When he went to bed his problem was still with him, and involved itself with his dreams; but always the young girl smiled upon him with sympathetic eyes and told him to go on–or so it seemed to him.
He was silent at breakfast. He went to school with a feeling that a return to teaching little tow-heads to count and spell was now impossible. He sat at his scarred and dingy desk while they took their places, and his eyes had a passionate intensity of prayer in them which awed his pupils. He had assumed new grandeur and terror in their eyes. When they were seated he bowed his head and uttered a short plea for grace, and then he looked at them again.
On the low front seat, with dangling legs and red, round faces, sat the little ones. Some way he could not call them to his knees and teach them to spell; he felt as if he ought to call them to him, as Christ did, to teach them love and reverence. It was impossible that they should not be touched by this hideous neighborhood strife.
Behind them sat the older children, some of them with rough, hard, sly faces. One or two grinned rudely and nudged each other. The older girls sat with bated breath; they perceived something strange in the air. Most of them had heard his sermon of the night before.