They all knelt down, huddled like sheep in the narrow spaces between the benches, and from among them went up the voice of supplication, that anywhere and anyhow has the commanding dignity of spiritual communion, the fervour of exaltation, and all the moving humility of the finite leaning upon the infinite. Ignorance was annihilated, so far as Brother Reuben Bates's prayer was concerned. It grasped the fact of immortality—all worth knowing!—and humble humanity was presented as possessing the intimate inherent principles of the splendid fruitions of eternity.
He had few words, Brother Reuben, and the aspirated 'Ah!' was long drawn often, while he swiftly thought of something else to say. Brother Jake Tobin, after the manner in vogue among them, broke out from time to time with a fervour of assent. 'Yes, my Master!' he would exclaim in a wild, ecstatic tone. 'Bless the Lord!' 'That's a true word!' 'I'm so happy!'
Always these interpolations came opportunely when Brother Reuben seemed entangled in his primitive rhetoric, and gave him a moment for improvisation. It was doubtless Hi Kelsey's miserable misfortune that his acute intuition should detect in the reverend tones a vainglorious self-satisfaction, known to no one else, not even to the speaker; that he should accurately gauge how Brother Jake Tobin secretly piqued himself upon his own gift in prayer, never having experienced these stuttering halts, never having needed these pious boosts; that he should be aware, ignorant as he was, of that duality of cerebration by which Brother Jake's mind was divided between the effect on God, bending down a gracious ear, and the impression of these ecstatic outbursts on the congregation; that the petty contemptibleness of it should depress him; that its dissimulations angered him. With the rigour of an upright man, he upbraided himself. He was on his knees: was he praying? Were these the sincerities of faith? Was this lukewarm inattention the guerdon of the sacrifice of the cross? His ideal and himself, himself and what he sought to be—oh, the gulf! the deep divisions!
He gave his intentions no grace. He conceded naught to human nature. His conscience revolted at a sham. And he was a living, breathing sham—upon his knees.
Ah, let us have a little mercy on ourselves! Most of us do. For there was Brother Jake Tobin, with a conscience free of offence, happily unobservant of his own complicated mental processes and of the motives of his own human heart, becoming more and more actively assistant as Brother Reuben Bates grew panicky, hesitant, and involved, and kept convulsively on through sheer inability to stop, suggesting epilepsy rather than piety.
It was over at last; exhausted nature prevailed, and Brother Bates resumed his seat, wiping the perspiration from his brow and raucously clearing his rasped throat.
There was a great scraping of the rough shoes and boots on the floor as the congregation rose, and one or two of the benches were moved backward with a harsh, grating sound. A small boy had gone to sleep during the petition, and remained in his prayerful attitude. Brother Jake Tobin settled himself in his chair as comfortably as might be, tilted it back on its hind-legs against the wall, and wore the air of having fairly exploited his share of the services and cast off responsibility. The congregation composed itself to listen to the sermon.
There was an expectant pause. Kelsey remembered ever after the tumult of emotion with which he stepped forward to the table and opened the book. He turned to the New Testament for his text—turned the leaves with a familiar hand. Some ennobling phase of that wonderful story which would touch the tender, true affinity of human nature for the higher things—from this he would preach to-day. And yet, at the same moment, with a contrariety of feeling from which he shrank aghast, there was skulking into his mind all that grewsome company of doubts. In double file they came: fate and free agency, free will and fore-ordination, infinite mercy and infinite justice, God's loving-kindness and man's intolerable misery, redemption and damnation. He had evolved them all from his own unconscious logical faculty, and they pursued him as if he had, in some spiritual necromancy, conjured up a devil—nay, legions of devils. Perhaps if he had known how they have assaulted the hearts of men in times gone past; how they have been combated and baffled, and yet have risen and pursued again; how, in the scrutiny of science and research, men have paused before their awful presence, analyzed them, philosophized about them, and found them interesting; how others, in the levity of the world, having heard of them, grudge the time to think upon them—if he had known all this, he might have felt some courage in numbers.
As it was, there was no fight left in him. He closed the book with a sudden impulse. 'My frien's,' he said, 'I stan' not hyar ter preach ter-day, but fur confession.'
There was a galvanic start among the congregation, then intense silence.