IV
It is not to be supposed that Father Jinks achieved his heart's desire without opposition, and he verified in his experience the fact that a man's bitterest foes are those of his own household. He was opposed by the people's churchwarden, who would not go elsewhere, declaring that he had been in St Agatha's before Jinks was born—which was not the case—and would be after Jinks had gone, which turned out sadly true. He was harassed by “aggrieved parishioners,” who declared by petitions in all quarters that they could no longer worship in St Agatha's, and that what with daily services, fine music, and decorations, the place was little better than a Papist chapel. His breakfast-table had daily one or two anonymous letters reminding Jinks of his ordination vows, and accusing him of perjury, insinuating charges against his moral character and threatening exposure, quoting texts regarding the condition of the unconverted and the doom of hypocrites. He was dragged before all kinds of Courts, this one little man, and received every form of censure and admonition; he was ordered to prison, and left the Vicarage one evening in a cab, while the choir boys, led by Bags, wanted to fight the officer. And when all these measures produced no effect, more forcible measures were taken to express the mind of the people and to re-establish the Reformation in the parish of St Agatha's. A leader was raised up in a gentleman who had earned an uncertain living by canvassing for the Kings of England in forty-two parts, in selling a new invention in gas-burners, in replying to infidels in Hyde Park, and in describing the end of the world with the aid of a magic lantern. This man of varied talents saw it to be his duty—and who can judge another man's conscience?—to attend St Agatha's one Sunday forenoon, accompanied by a number of fellow-Protestants, who, owing to the restriction of the licensing laws, were out of employment at that hour, and they expressed their theological views during service in a very frank and animated fashion. Bigger men than Jinks might have been upset by the turmoil and menaces; but it shows what a spirit may dwell in small bulk, that this shy modest man did not stutter once that morning, and seemed indeed unconscious of the “Modern Luther's” presence; and after the floor of the church had been washed on Monday no trace remained that a testimony had been lifted up against the disguised Jesuit who was corrupting St Agatha's. Once only did Jinks publicly reply to the hurricane of charges which beat upon him during his short, hard service, and that was when he was accused of having introduced the confessional, with results which it was alleged were already well known in the district, and which would soon reduce its morality to the social level of the south of Ireland. A week afterwards Jinks explained in a sermon which he had rewritten three times: (1) That the practice of confession was, in his poor judgment, most helpful to the spiritual life by reminding us of the sins which do most easily beset us, and their horrible guilt before God; (2) That it was really the intention of the Church of England that her children should have this benefit; and (3) That he, John James Jinks, a duly ordained priest of the same Church, had power, under conditions, to hear confessions and declare the forgiveness of sins to all true penitents. Thereafter, he went on to state that he had not introduced confession as a practice in St Agatha's, because he had never been trained in confessional theology, because a confessor required authority from his bishop, and this the bishop would not give; and, finally, it seemed to him that any confessor must be a priest with a special knowledge of life, and of conspicuous holiness; and, as they knew well, he was neither, but only an ignorant and frail man, who was more conscious of his deficiencies every day, and who earnestly besought the aid of their prayers. This sermon was reported in the Islington Mercury, which circulated largely amongst us, and called forth an ingenious reply from the “Modern Luther,” who pointed out that if Mr. Jinks had not set up a confessional box in St Agatha's Church, it was only because his (the “Modern Luther's”) eye was upon him; that the confessional could likely be discovered in the Vicarage; that in so far as Mr. Jinks was not telling the truth he would receive absolution from the Jesuits, and that he very likely had already received a licence to tell as many lies as he saw would help his cause. Men, however, do count for something even in religious controversy, and the very people who had no belief in Jinks' doctrine could see some difference between his patient, charitable self-sacrificing life and the career of a windbag like the “Modern Luther,” and no one in the last year of his life accused Jinks of falsehood.
During all these troubled days he never lost his temper, or said bitter things: he believed, as he once told me in all modesty, that if he suffered it was for his sins, and that persecution was only a call to harder labour; and it appeared afterwards that he had gone out of his way to do a good turn to certain of his bitterest enemies. Indeed, I am now certain that they did not injure him at all; but one is also quite as certain that he was hindered and made ridiculous by certain of his own supporters. Certain young women of uncertain age who had been district visitors and carried tracts under the revered Canon, or had been brought up in various forms of Dissent, responded with enthusiasm to the Catholic Reformation. They wore large gold (or gilt) crosses, and were careful to use heavily crossed prayer-books; they attended early celebration, and were horrified at people taking the sacrament not fasting; they not only did obeisance to the altar, where there was no sacrament, and bowed at the name of Jesus, and crossed themselves in a very diligent and comprehensive fashion, but invented forms of devotion which even Jinks could not comprehend, and so scandalized the old clerk, who stuck by St. Agatha's, that he asked them one day during service if they were ill, and suggested that they should leave the church before things came to the worst Personally, as a close observer of this drama, I had no sympathy with the ill-natured suggestion that these devout females were moved by the fact that the priest of St Agatha's was unmarried, because no man was ever more careful in his intercourse with the other sex than my friend, and because this kind of woman—till she marries, and with modifications afterwards—has a mania for ritual and priests. This band, who called themselves the Sisters of St Agatha, and severely tried our unsentimental district, were a constant embarrassment to Jinks. They made the entire attendance at the daily services; they insisted on cleaning the chancel on their knees; they fluttered round the confused little man in the street; they could hardly be kept out of the Vicarage; they talked of nothing but saints' days and offices and vestments, till Jinks, the simplest and honestest of men, was tempted, for his sake and their own salvation, to entreat them to depart and return whence they had come.