FullReads

Father Broidy rushed down the stone steps and ran toward the Bishop’s carriage which had just stopped at the curb. He flung open the door before the driver could alight, kissed the ring on the hand extended him, helped its owner out and with a beaming face led the Bishop to the pretty and comfortable rectory.

“Welcome! welcome to Alta, Bishop,” he said as they entered the house, “and sure the whole Deanery is here to back it up.”

The Bishop smiled as the clergy trooped down the stairs echoing the greeting. The Bishop knew them all, and he was happy, for well was he aware that every man meant what he said. No one really ever admired the Bishop, but all loved him, and each had a private reason of his own for it that he never confided to anyone save his nearest crony. They were all here now to witness the resurrection of Alta–the poorest parish in a not too rich Diocese, hopeless three years ago, but now–well, there it is across the lot, that symphony in stone, every line of its chaste gothic a “Te Deum” that even an agnostic could understand and appreciate; every bit of carving the paragraph of a sermon that passers-by, perforce, must hear. To-day it is to be consecrated, the cap-stone is to be set on Father Broidy’s Arch of Triumph and the real life of Alta parish to begin.

“I thought you had but sixteen families here,” said the Bishop as he watched the crowd stream into the church.

“There were but eighteen, Bishop,” the young priest answered, with a happy smile that had considerable self-satisfaction in it. “There are seventy-five now.”

“And how did it come about, my lad?” questioned the Bishop.

“Mostly through my mission bringing back some of the ‘ought-to-be’s,’ but I suppose principally because my friend McDermott opened his factory to Catholics. You know, Bishop, that though he was born one of us he had somehow acquired a bitter hatred of the Church, and he never employed Catholics until I brought him around.”

There was a shadow of a smile that had meaning to it on the Bishop’s face, as he patted the ardent young pastor on the arm, and said:

“Well, God bless him! God bless him! but I suppose we must begin to vest now. Is it not near ten o’clock?”

Father Broidy turned with a little shade of disappointment on his face to the work of preparation, and soon had the procession started toward the church.

Shall I describe the beauty of it all?–the lights and flowers, the swinging censers, with the glory of the chant and the wealth of mystic symbolism which followed the passing of that solemn procession into the sanctuary? That could best be imagined, like the feeling in the heart of the young pastor who adored every line of the building. He had watched the laying of each stone, and could almost count the chips that had jumped from every chisel. There had never been so beautiful a day to him, and never such a ceremony but one–three years ago in the Seminary chapel. He almost forgot it in the glory of the present. Dear me, how well Kaiser did preach! He always knew it, did Father Broidy, that young Kaiser had it in him. He did not envy him a bit of the congratulations. They were a part of Father Broidy’s triumph, too. It was small wonder that the Dean whispered to the Bishop on the way back to the rectory:

“You will have to put Broidy at the top of the list now. He has surely won his spurs to-day.”

But again the shadow of the meaning smile was on the Bishop’s face, and he said nothing; so the Dean looked wise and mysterious as he slapped the young pastor on the back and said:

“Proficiat, God bless you! You have done well, and I am proud of you, but wait and listen.” Then his voice dropped to a whisper. “I was talking to the Bishop about you.”