"I am mistaken if you have not been informed. Her parents were members of the Wesleyan Methodist body, and the woman was not baptized in the Church of England. Therefore I cannot say prayers over her."
"Is that God's law?"
"It is mine!" replied the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, with inconsiderate haste. If, when he heard the rejoinder, he could have caused the old man to fall into dust at his feet, he would have done so.
"You say truly, sir," said the old man, in a tone of bitter calmness. "It is not God's law; it is yours."
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell shaded his face with his hand; he did not choose that the feeling there expressed should be seen. He knew, by his son's sympathetic movement towards Lily, that Felix had gone over to the enemy, and a consciousness possessed him that Felix was not displeased at his discomfiture. Still it was his duty to assert himself, and he did so accordingly in severe measured terms, and in tones utterly devoid of feeling.
"I have already told you that you came here to revile--to revile God through His minister. It is such as you who set men's minds afire, and drive them into the pit."
But the old man interrupted him with,
"Nay, sir, do not let us argue; I at least have no time. A dead woman is waiting for me. I must go and seek a minister who will say prayers over the poor clay. Come, my children."
"To seek a minister!" echoed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. "What minister?"
"A Methodist minister, as that is your will."