She was still more uneasy when on Sunday morning he said in his most positive manner, "Jessy, I wish you and Marion to remain at home to-day. A little later you will understand my desire."
"As you wish, Ian. We shall both be glad of a quiet rest day. I hope you know what you are going to do, Ian. Our life is a spectacle—a tragedy to both men and angels—bad angels as well as good ones. Don't forget that, Ian."
"I shall not forget, and I know what I am going to do."
She looked at him anxiously, but had never seen him more decided and purposeful. He was also dressed with extreme care, and, though in ecclesiastical costume, was so singularly like his uncle that Mrs. Caird involuntarily thought, "How soldierly he carries himself! What a fighter he would have been! But he is some way quite different—not like the old Ian at all."
Yes, he was different, for on the soul's shoreless ocean the tides only heave and swell when they are penetrated by the Powers of the World to Come. And Dr. Macrae was still under the emotions of his first experience of that kind. He was prescient and restless. For, though the outward man appeared the same, the archway inside was uplifted and widened, and Dr. Macrae had risen to its requirements. He was ready to fight for his soul. Yes, with his life in his hand, to fight for its salvation. What would it profit him if he gained the whole world and lost his soul?
Frequently he assured himself that he did not now regard the Bible as divinely inspired, yet he was constantly deciding this or that question by its decrees. So quite naturally he followed this tremendous inquiry of Christ's by those two passionate invocations of David, "Cast me not away from Thy Presence. Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." To be cast out of God's Presence. To be sent into the Outer Darkness, full of the Evil Ones! "O Jessy!" he cried, "such a doom would turn a living man into clay!"
It was of this awful possibility he was thinking as he walked to the Church of the Disciples. Two or three of the deacons were standing in the vestibule, and they looked at him and then at each other with a pleased expression.
"We rejoice to see you, sir, looking so well," said one. "The church is full, sir, and, if our clock is correct, there is but five minutes to service time."
He had five minutes yet, in the which he could draw back or postpone his intention—or—or—then his dream came to his remembrance, and he put all hesitation out of the question. With a thoughtful gravity he walked down the aisle, ascended the pulpit stairs, and stood in his place before the people. And they watched him with a sigh of content and pleasure. They had often seen in his eyes that far-away gaze of one who looks past the visible and sees time and eternity as the old prophets saw them.
They expected from this sign a sermon which would take them for an hour "to the Land which is very far off."